


It Always Ends in a Fight

by gluupor



Series: Avengers Assemble [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Avengers, Brainwashing, Comic Book Science, Comic Book Violence, Flashbacks, Following Tags are all Implied/Referenced and Past:, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Superpowers, super heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-04-25 23:59:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gluupor/pseuds/gluupor
Summary: Something has to be done. Science is advancing rapidly, creating enemies and weapons that standard security forces can't stand against. People are gaining superpowers, attack robots are being built, dangerous new chemical compounds are being engineered.SHIELD director David Wymack has an idea: to bring together a group of extraordinary individuals to deal with the threats that no one else can.He calls it the Avengers Initiative.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have missed it, but this fic has a [prologue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14317551).
> 
> This is for all of you who were like, "No, write an Avengers AU!" when I _specifically_ said I wasn't going to while I was working on my [Pushing Daisies AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13565184/chapters/31130310). You all better be reading and commenting ;)
> 
> I've seen most of the MCU movies, but really the majority of my knowledge of Marvel canon comes from reading fanfic. So this really is more of an Avengers Fanfic AU.
> 
> Thank you to olivia, Jules, and MakeBreakfastNotWar in the AFTG big bang discord chat who all gave me suggestions for Seth's name.
> 
> I don't think I have any specific warnings for this chapter that aren't tagged above. If I missed anything or if you have any questions, please let me know.

He blocks his opponent’s first punch, but her second sneaks under his guard, cracking him on the chin. He doesn’t stagger or snap his head back; he has learned how to shrug off pain. He takes a swing, but she sidesteps it easily; she is faster than he is, negating the fact that he is much stronger. He doesn’t think he’s landed a hit yet. She kicks him; he manages to grab her leg but she uses her body’s momentum to loop around him, landing kicks against his kidneys with her other leg. He squeezes her calf and, in retaliation, she kicks the backs of his knees, sending him sprawling forward. He loses his grip on her as he tries to catch himself. She’s got him at even more of a disadvantage now. Shadows start to gather in his peripheral vision and he can hear the taunts.

His opponent isn’t fazed. If he were operating at optimal efficiency he would have a chance against her. As it is, he’s low on both food and sleep. He can function for weeks without either, but there are downsides. A hard jab between his shoulder blades knocks him the rest of the way down. He rolls over, trying to regain his footing, but she’s on him in an instant, knives pressed against both his carotid and femoral arteries. He breathes heavily, staring up at the woman who is holding his life in her hands.

She raises an eyebrow. “Sloppy,” she snaps, and gets off of him. “Again.”

The shadows take over.

He is not allowed to lose. Failure is not permitted. He will be punished for this. He doesn’t know how yet, but all options leave him quaking: Spear’s been looking at him covetously, the drugs always leave him fuzzy, and the lightning chair rips holes in his mind. He feels his breath quicken. _No_ , he thinks, _no no no no no_. He knows that there’s no use: saying no has never stopped them before.

“Andrew,” a sharp voice barks above him. “Look at me.”

He knows better than to ignore a direct command. His eyes snap to the woman looming above him. Natalia stares down at him, her dark eyes hard, her - his brain feels like it stalls completely, before stuttering and coming back to life. Her hair is bright white with pink and turquoise streaks. She is no longer Natalia, she has molded herself into someone new.

“Fuck,” mutters Andrew, thunking his head back against the training room floor mat, and closing his eyes briefly. He opens them after counting to three: he can’t let the memories overcome him again. “Renee,” he rasps out, keeping his eyes on her. Her hair - along with the fact that she’s speaking English and calling him Andrew - help him remain anchored in the present. She smiles at him and he anticipates her next question. “Avengers Tower. New York. 2018,” he recites dutifully.

She sits beside him and lets him recover. It’s been months since he’s gotten lost in his memories like that. When he’d first moved into the tower he’d had episodes at least once a week. Renee was guilty and had wanted to stop sparring with him, but he’d insisted. Her guilt didn’t interest him; guilt was a useless emotion and couldn’t change the past. As far as he was concerned she had as much responsibility for his past treatment as he himself did. Which was to say, none. He’d told her that if she wanted to make amends then she could help keep his skills sharp; it wasn’t like he trusted anyone else in the building to train with him.

However, it had been stupid of him to insist on sparring today. His sleep has been interrupted lately by memories and nightmares and memories that _are_ nightmares, making him sluggish. But he’d just wanted his brain to _stop_ , to stop throwing up images that he wishes his stupid perfect memory could let him forget, and fighting always clears his mind. He should have known better. It had been with _them_ that he’d learned to blank his mind so completely; of course sparring with his old teacher had catapulted him back in time. Especially considering his fatigue: Renee is no more patient with his faults than Natalia had been.

He watches Renee and she watches back with a look so filled with comprehension that he vaguely wishes that he was attracted to women and she was attracted to men. There is surely not another person on Earth who can understand him so completely.

“Come on,” she says, patting his knee. “Let’s go out for ice cream.”

* * *

Andrew rarely leaves the tower, except when he is on an Avengers mission. He does not particularly like going out in public, but it's been mutually agreed upon - not by him - that never leaving the tower is bad for his mental health. Renee is usually his escort, but he's also gone on excursions during his sessions with Bee, and Nicky has dragged him and Aaron out for ‘family bonding time’, and sometimes he accompanies Kevin out on errands because the other man abhors being alone and Andrew owes him a debt.

He showers before leaving with Renee, pulling on a long sleeved shirt and a pair of leather gloves, despite the fact that the temperature is in the low nineties. He knows his attire will draw some looks, but fewer than if he wore a t-shirt. The fact that both his forearms are metal below the elbow is remarkable and identifies him as the Winter Soldier, and he does not want to be recognized.

The ice cream place isn’t far from the tower, only a couple blocks, but there are enough people on the sidewalks to set his teeth on edge. Renee flows around them easily, shifting like smoke. It’s a skill that Andrew doesn’t share; they may have been crafted by the same people, but they’ve always had different purposes. Andrew is a blunt instrument, a hammer, someone to threaten and intimidate. Renee is a scalpel, a shadow; she’s in and out before she’s noticed, the only evidence of her presence is found in the lingering pain.

Thankfully, the shop isn’t crowded. Renee asks him what he wants and goes to the counter - she doesn’t force him to interact with other people when they’re out, unlike Bee. Andrew surveys the shop and picks the most defensible location: a seat with his back to the wall and a clear view of all three exits.

Renee joins him before long, placing his bowl of double chocolate and caramel ice cream in front of him with shining eyes. The first few times she had brought him here he hadn’t ordered anything, not understanding the indulgence. Ice cream didn’t have any nutritional value. Eventually she’d coaxed him into eating some of the healthier offerings.

It is still sometimes a struggle for him, to think of himself as a human, to allow himself luxuries. For a decade he had been nothing but a weapon, a tool, an object for others to use. After he’d been taken from _them_ he’d joined the Avengers (he hadn’t been given much of a choice: joining the Avengers was the only option if he wanted both Aaron and himself to remain free from confinement) and SHIELD had been invested in making him an autonomous agent instead of a mindless killing machine. He’d gone through twelve incompatible therapists until Wilds had suggested that he try a civilian therapist (who had undergone thorough background checks, of course) instead of those associated with SHIELD. Then he’d met Betsy Dobson. She was the first who seemed more interested in helping him recover for his own sake rather than so that he’d be useful. He knows that it must not be easy to be his therapist but Bee hasn’t given up on him yet, even coming to see him at the tower instead of demanding that he go to her office.

When she’d first raised the topic of self-care he’d been confused. He was a weapon, he’d argued, and weapons required maintenance to remain operational, but didn’t require _comfort_. She’d given him homework: to do something just for him that hadn’t been allowed when he was their weapon. He’d downed a bottle of whisky, the alcohol doing nothing to him because of his supersoldier serum, and smoked a pack of cigarettes.

Bee had smiled ruefully when he’d told her and said, “Good for you. Now let’s work on indulgences that aren’t self-destructive.”

He’d started with food. He began eating things other than his exact required nutritional intake. He ate things full of fat and grease and sugar. He had cake for dinner and pizza for breakfast and nearly made Kevin cry more than once.

He’d then moved on to warmth. When he was alone in his apartment, he wore comfortable, warm, not-tactically-sound clothing. He wrapped himself in fuzzy blankets while sitting on his couch. He didn’t like to sleep in his bed, but he lined his closet with fluffy pillows and thick blankets to keep him warm at night.

Bee had suggested he start taking hot baths to soak his aching muscles and had gifted him a collection of bath bombs. He’d been wary at first, but after he’d discovered that they weren’t actual explosives, he came to enjoy their fragrances and how soft they made his skin.

He’s been thinking lately about doing more to reclaim his body. Renee, he knows, has gone through something similar, although she is farther along the path to becoming a real human than he is. Her white hair, along with the ever-changing colourful highlights, is as much about asserting her individuality and control over her appearance as it is about making herself memorable. Agents who are too memorable cannot be used to seduce information out of anybody, and the tattoos that she sports - the large angel wings on her back, the vines and flowers along her ribs, the knives on the inside of each wrist - mean that her naked body is incredibly unique.

Andrew wants tattoos on his upper arms to camouflage the scars that radiate outwards from his elbows, but he’s not sure he’s stable enough for a stranger to put their hands on him and cause pain, however minimal. He would need to go to Renee’s tattoo artist, someone she trusts, and have her stand guard the entire time, probably while holding a visible weapon.

He’s considering broaching the topic when both his and Renee’s cell phones go off. It’s a piercing siren that won’t shut off until they’re on their way to suit up. Andrew has tried to disable it in the past, but Reynolds’ technological abilities far surpass his own. She’s even programmed the siren to sound if his phone has been silenced or if it’s powered off.

Andrew quickly stuffs the rest of his ice cream into his mouth, wincing against the brain freeze and then he and Renee are up and hurrying back to the tower.

“SETH, report,” says Renee as soon as they get to the Avengers-only elevator in the lobby of the tower.

The speaker in the ceiling emits a deep sigh. Reynolds modelled her AI’s personality - the Sentient Encyclopedic Technological Helper, or SETH for short - after her late boyfriend, and it’s a giant asshole. Although it’s been programmed to help the Avengers it doesn’t have to be polite or forthcoming. It’s fairly vocal about how much it hates Andrew and Andrew has made several in depth plans that involve destroying the AI core with a knife.

“Her majesty-” which is one of two ways the AI refers to Reynolds (the other is Sire) “-has received reports from SHIELD about an attack in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She requests that you, Agent Walker, and you, Fucknugget, suit up. She and Fly-boy have already gone ahead to scout. There is a quinjet awaiting you on the roof.”

Renee glances at Andrew in amusement. “I thought ‘Fucknugget’ was Aaron?” she says.

He shrugs. “It probably can’t tell us apart. It’s very stupid.”

“Fuck you, too, Monster,” replies SETH.

The elevator reaches their destination, the Avengers equipment and change room, and Andrew heads to his locker. His super-suit, as Nicky insists on calling it, is made of leather and Kevlar and some sort of tactical fabric that Reynolds invented. It has a lot of straps and buckles, making it a little difficult to put on, but also making him appear very intimidating. His forearms are bare, showing off the shiny metal and he’s able to secure enough weapons to his uniform that he could probably single-handedly invade a small country. He tops it off with a mask that covers the entire bottom half of his face. It definitely adds to his inhuman appearance, but actually functions to filter out the smoke and dust and unknown chemicals that he frequently comes into contact with. It also focuses him: once the mask is on he is mission ready.

Renee’s suit is simpler; a black, reinforced catsuit. She also wears a domino mask and a black bandana to hide her identity: she basically looks like a female version of the man in black from the Princess Bride. She’s strapping her guns into her thigh holsters as Andrew slips the last of his knives into their sheaths, and then they’re back in the elevator on the way to the roof.

Kevin is waiting impatiently for them by the ramp into the quinjet, pacing back and forth and gripping his bow.

“Took you long enough,” he grumbles, leading them onto the aircraft.

Andrew ignores him, and settles into a seat across the aisle from Aaron. Aaron is only coming along as a last resort as unleashing his alter-ego in populated areas is always more trouble than it is worth. The craft lifts off, a SHIELD agent at the controls.

Renee sends a worried glance over at Andrew; he knows she’s thinking about his earlier flashback. He shakes his head at her once and unzips a small pocket on his vest, extracting and holding up an earpiece before putting it in place. She nods in understanding: it’s impossible for him to get lost in time with his teammates’ obnoxious chatter in his ears.

“Hawkeye, Widow, Soldier, and Hulk en route,” says Kevin into his communicator. “What are we looking at, Wilds?”

Dan Wilds is their team leader. She’s a senior SHIELD agent who reports directly to Wymack, SHIELD’s director, but has been with the Avengers since their inception. She doesn’t join them actively; instead she remains at Avengers Tower and, using multiple video feeds and SETH’s information, directs them. “Falcon and Iron Man are closing in on target,” she replies. “Early reports suggest that robots are attacking.”

“Whose robots?” snaps Reynolds. She never likes any perceived competition.

“We believe them to be the property of Dr. Doom,” says Wilds.

“ _Dr. Doom_?” repeats Boyd in disbelief.

“Dr. Victor von Doom,” says Wilds dryly. “Leader of the independent nation of Latveria, which he holds with an iron grip.”

There’s a beat before Boyd replies, “Well it serves the people of Latveria right for electing someone with the last name _von Doom_.”

“Dictators are rarely elected, Matt,” says Renee.

“Besides,” says Reynolds, “it’s not like he had any choice but to be a supervillain with that name.” There’s a little background static that sounds like she’s firing her repulsors. “And that’s a confirmation on the Doombots,” she says. “Little fuckers are more resilient than they look.”

“Yeah,” agrees Boyd. “Oh, fuck. Die you little bastard!”

“Bullets seem to be bouncing off of them,” remarks Wilds. “Widow, Soldier, you’re to engage them with melee weapons; Hawkeye, set up on a roof to provide them with sniper support. Try your explosive arrows to begin with. Hulk, stand by.” She directs the pilot where to drop them off.

Once his boots hit the ground, he loses himself in the fight. He breaks off a piece of metal railing in his hands, and uses it as a baseball bat/club to smack the little flying robots out of the air. Once they’re on the ground he can pry open their casings and crush their power sources. He lets the comm chatter fade into the background, only paying enough attention so that he’ll know if he’s addressed.

At a lull in the attacks, he glances around. Renee has unearthed a katana from… somewhere. She definitely wasn’t carrying it before; her suit doesn’t leave that much to the imagination. She sees him looking and grins.

“Jealous?” she asks as she slices a robot out of the air.

“That you can conjure a sword? Fucking obviously,” he grumbles back, much to the delight of Reynolds and Boyd, based on their joyous reactions.

The two of them are still circling overhead. Reynolds’ disruptors seem to stun the robots for long enough that she can punch them, her armour crumpling them instantly. Boyd has just started pistol whipping them, dropping them low enough so that Andrew or Renee can hit them.

Kevin has found a vantage point on top of a building about half a block away. He’s using his electric arrows, the shock stunning the robots and knocking them out of the sky. The local police have cordoned off the area, letting the Avengers do their jobs while ushering civilians out of the way.

Wilds announces that they’re almost in the clear. They just have to mop up the remnants of the Doombots in their immediate vicinity. Reynolds immediately starts organizing for several robots to be taken back to her lab at the tower for study.

“Do we know what the purpose of this attack was?” Renee asks, as Boyd tosses her a robot to chop.

“Not yet,” says Wilds.

“World domination, probably,” says Boyd. “That’s usually what the supervillains are up to.”

“I’m beginning to think that the majority of the attacks we’ve stopped recently are about annoying us,” complains Kevin. “Remember the squid?”

Everyone groans. Some _jackass_ had engineered a giant mutant squid which had crawled out of the East River. They’d managed to stop it, but had still ended up covered in slimy, smelly squid guts and ink. Renee had had to clean the goo out of the interlocking plates on Andrew’s metal arms, something he couldn’t do by himself.

“It is possible that we’ve invited every weirdo on the planet to attack us by gathering a team of superheroes,” says Wilds thoughtfully. “Why can’t these science geniuses ever be focused on curing AIDS or creating clean energy or feeding the world? Why does it always have to be killer robots and giant squid and sex pollen?”

“Sex pollen?” asks Reynolds, sounding intrigued. “I missed that one.”

“Hasn’t happened yet,” admits Wilds. “However, it is the excuse I use whenever anyone finds out that you and I slept together.”

“Hey!” cries Reynolds, insulted. “Why do you need an _excuse_? I’m the greatest. I’m super rich, super smart, and super sexy! Besides, it was the result of alcohol and questioning our sexualities, not sex pollen.”

“Yeah, Dan,” says Boyd, a smile in his voice, “‘I was drunk and curious’ isn’t a good enough excuse for you? It’s tried and tested and it has stood the test of time.”

“I’m _definitely_ bisexual, by the way,” adds Reynolds helpfully.

“Anyway,” says Wilds, clearly ignoring both Reynolds and Boyd, “with the whackos you guys keep attracting, I figure it’s just a matter of time before one of them releases sex pollen and you have to deal with it.”

“Hard pass,” grunts Andrew, crushing a robot with the force of his punch.

“Yeah, I’ll skip that too,” says Renee mildly. “I had enough sex without true consent when I was forced into being a honeypot.”

There’s a brief silence. “Well, thanks for making us feel like insensitive assholes,” huffs Reynolds. “Anyone else want to bring up their trauma? Matt, you want to remind us of your drug problem? Day, do you want to talk about your mother abandoning you with terrible people? Minyard, want to mention that you spent a decade as a brainwashed assassin?”

“Or,” says Kevin, “we can finish this up and return to the tower and avoid socializing with each other until the next time we’re called out.”

“I vote for that,” says Aaron suddenly, speaking up for the first time. “This conversation is making me angry.”

“You can’t use that excuse every time you want us to shut up!” argues Boyd.

“Why not?” asks Aaron sardonically. “It usually works.”

* * *

Andrew’s holding a yoga position when SETH emits a little chime and says, “Hey Monster, there’s an Avengers meeting in fifteen minutes in conference room one and, for some reason that I don’t understand, your miniature ass is required to attend.”

Andrew startles and moves to hide his yoga mat before he can remember that SETH can’t see him. Reynolds has cameras and microphones embedded in all rooms in the tower, but Andrew had disabled the ones in his living quarters after he’d moved in. He conceded to allow a single speaker in his apartment that functions like a doorbell/intercom and allows SETH to give him messages from the others.

He rolls up his yoga mat and props it against the wall. Bee had suggested he try it. His metal forearms are heavier than normal forearms, which puts a lot of strain on his biceps, and shoulders, and back muscles. There’s no way that he’d be able to get a massage - being vulnerable and mostly naked with a stranger at his back? No - so he uses yoga to stretch his muscles and keep himself limber. He changes out of his stretchy yoga clothes into black jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt and takes the elevator to the appropriate floor.

He’s not the last to arrive, even though he purposely waited more than fifteen minutes before he even left his apartment. Both Aaron and Reynolds are still absent, which is par for the course; they’re both terrible at pulling themselves out of their labs and away from their research.

David Wymack is looming at the head of the conference room. The director of SHIELD rarely comes to these gatherings so there must be something big happening. Andrew briefly wonders if the world is ending before realizing that he doesn’t really care if it is.

“Andrew!” says Nicky in excitement. “I need some pictures of you for Instagram. I ran out of my last supply and people have noticed your absence from social media.” Nicky is in charge of PR for the Avengers. He does most of their media relations and runs their social media accounts. The fact that Avengers fights usually cause damage to whatever city they are in means that they need to generate goodwill from the general populace. Andrew thinks everyone should just be grateful that villains aren't overrunning the Earth.

He, Nicky, and Aaron were all recruited to the Avengers at the same time, shortly after Andrew had been recovered by SHIELD. Nicky’s presence is meant to keep Andrew and Aaron loyal.

Aaron wanders in shortly after Andrew gives a grudging nod to Nicky's request, his eyes far away like they often are when he's pulled away from his research.

Reynolds arrives last, sweeping into the room like she owns it (technically she does) and taking in Wymack’s presence, his billowing coat and eye patch giving him an omnipresent air of mystery and danger.

“What calamity has befallen the Earth that only the Avengers can fix?” she asks mockingly as she takes a seat. “Alien invasion? Enhanced soldiers overrunning the Mall of America? Time travellers from the future come to warn us of our doom?”

“Time traveller from the past,” says Wymack. Andrew is impressed by how effectively he glares with only one eye. “What do you know about Captain America?”

Kevin perks up immediately. He has a passion for history. “Neil Josten?” he asks excitedly.

“I thought Captain America was just a comic book character,” Boyd interjects.

“Yeah,” adds Nicky. “Wasn't it found that he was invented for propaganda, like Rosie the Riveter? There was a big exposé in the eighties where they interviewed the actor who played Captain America in the movies.”

“He was super Aryan, too,” says Reynolds. "I'm not sure why the people in charge decided that America’s answer to Hitler should be his wet dream.”

“Racism,” says Boyd. “It's not like the politicians in this country weren't also white supremacists. They were just committing less genocide.”

“But that's not the real Captain America,” Kevin butts in. “The one you're talking about was just for propaganda, but there was an actual operative with the code name Captain America active during the Second World War. My grandma was one of his Howling Commandos.”

Wilds nods. “SHIELD has old SSR files that detail his missions. He was enhanced.”

“SSR?” asks Nicky.

“Strategic Scientific Reserve,” explains Kevin. “It was an allied agency during the war, kind of the precursor to SHIELD.”

“Enhanced how?” asks Aaron, his interest apparent. He spends most of his time researching his own enhancements and how to remove them.

Wilds shrugs apologetically. “There's very little information about that. I'm not sure if the documentation is incomplete or if worries about spies meant that it was never recorded.”

“Wait,” says Boyd. “Kevin, in the Captain America comics, Kayleigh Day is his girlfriend. Are we currently discussing a guy who shtupped your grandma?”

“Shtupped?” repeats Reynolds. “We’re all adults here. You can say fucked. Captain America fucked Kevin’s grandma.”

Wymack grimaces. “Don’t forget that his grandmother was my mother-in-law.” Boyd looks appropriately chastised, but Reynolds just grins.

Kayleigh Day was one of the paragons of American Intelligence. She'd co-founded SHIELD in the fifties with Reynolds’ old man and had served as its director for decades while also popping out two kids with her husband, Joe Winfield. One of her daughters, Abby, is married to Wymack and serves as the Avengers’ personal physician. Kayleigh had had a falling out with her younger daughter, Kendra, who broke off all contact following her father's death and ran away to join the circus. There, she'd given birth to Kevin, whom she'd raised for several years before dying suddenly and leaving him with criminals. He'd eventually left them and reunited with his grandmother, taking her last name when she'd died.

Kevin flushes. “I don't know if they were actually dating. She used to tell me stories about how she met Neil in a prison camp in Austria and helped him take down both Hydra and the Ravens.”

“And for those of us who don't know obscure World War II-era organizations…” says Reynolds.

Kevin shoots her a look. “You should,” he sneers. “Your father was there.”

“Yeah, he was also, like, seventy when I was born and he called me his biggest disappointment,” says Reynolds haughtily. “Shockingly, we weren't close.”

“Anyway,” says Wilds. “Hydra and the Ravens were the deep science divisions of the Axis powers: Hydra was German and the Ravens were Japanese.”

“Hydra scientists were secretly recruited by the Soviets near the end of the war,” says Kevin, sending an unsubtle apologetic look to Renee and Andrew. “They formed the foundation of the Red Room, which was absorbed into Department X after the Soviet Union collapsed.”

There’s an odd rushing sound in Andrew’s ears and he sees that Renee’s face has gone carefully blank. Department X is _them_ ; Andrew doesn’t ever say the name if he can help it. They took away his name, his autonomy, his identity, so why would he give them the courtesy of using their collective name?

He and Aaron were sold when they were young to a military research group. Andrew didn’t remember anything about his biological parents: he and Aaron had been raised, along with several other sets of twins, by a woman named Tilda Hemmick, the sister of the lead researcher. The researcher’s son Nicky had been around a lot during their childhood, calling himself their cousin and playing with them.

The researchers had wanted twins in order to perform comparison studies. Through the years, the other sets of twins had all died, killed by the serum that Dr. Luther Hemmick and his wife Maria were trying to perfect. Each failed experiment had increased their knowledge, getting them closer to the answer.

When he and Aaron were sixteen they were the only twins left and Luther thought that his serum was ready. He hypothesized that after injection irradiation of the subject was required in order to integrate the serum into the subject’s DNA, but there were two forms of radiation that could possibly work. Andrew was to be injected first, and then irradiated with Vita rays; Aaron would follow and be treated with Gamma rays.

Being irradiated had felt like he was being pulled apart, like his bones were on fire, but he had survived and he could feel the new strength within him. However, when he stepped out of the Vita Ray machine, Luther’s face had fallen. Andrew had not visibly turned into a supersoldier; he was still below average height and his appearance hadn't changed. Luther had thought that the experiment was a failure, but Andrew had known better. Using his newfound power, he’d pushed past the researchers and guards, hoping to save Aaron from any pain.

He was too late. Aaron was already in the Gamma ray machine when Andrew barrelled into the adjacent lab where Maria was overseeing everything, Luther close on his heels. There was a terrible screaming coming from the chamber and Andrew rushed towards it. It exploded outwards in a ball of fire, and an enormous green rage monster (Aaron’s alter-ego, although it would be another decade before Andrew learned that Aaron had actually survived the explosion) had emerged and proceeded to completely destroy the entire building and kill all the occupants.

Andrew had not been killed, although he was listed among the deceased. He’d been recovered by an American marine during the early rescue efforts. The marine, Drake Spear, was a traitor to his country and a devoted member of Department X, which had established splinter cells all over the world when the Red Room had disintegrated, hoping that they’d be stronger by not tying their fate to a single country. He’d brought Andrew to one of their foremost scientists, Dr. Proust, who was working out of a secret base in Siberia.

Andrew’s memory of this time is fuzzy; he’d been severely injured in the explosion, especially his hands and forearms, since he had thrown them up in front of him to protect his face from the fireball. The healing factor bestowed by the serum had saved his life, but his forearms had sustained too much damage. They’d been amputated at the elbow and Dr. Proust had replaced them with state-of-the-art metal prosthetics. He was kept docile with drugs and his training to become their attack dog had begun as soon as he’d healed enough.

The first thing they’d taught him was that his body wasn’t his own. He was their tool, to be used how they wished. Any pain or discomfort was to be ignored and he was to be pliant to their wishes. He’d resisted as much as he could through his haze of drugs, but he’d lost the fight as soon as they put him in the chair.

The chair was still a prominent part of his nightmares. It sent electric pulses into specific areas of his brain, making him unable to access his memories, turning him into a blank slate to be molded. His serum could repair the damage done by the chair, but only slowly. Once he was wiped, he was conditioned, trained to obey. All they had to do was put him in the chair and he became theirs, their brainwashed soldier willing to do whatever they wished.

They’d trained him to be a perfect weapon. He was made to be proficient with all weapons, excellent at hand-to-hand combat, able to operate most machinery and electronics, and a polyglot. Now that he’d been away from them for three years his brain had completely healed the damage inflicted by the chair and he could remember with perfect clarity everything that had happened to him. Renee suspects that he may still have trigger words buried deep in his subconscious, waiting like mines to return him into being their perfect slave.

Renee had been one of theirs as well, but in a different way. She’d been recruited as a child before the Soviet Union fell. She’d been called Natalia Shildova then, but that was likely not her real name. She didn’t know where she came from, but had traced her heritage to the Siberian Tartars. She’d been brainwashed, too, but by more mundane methods. Propaganda and conditioning when she was an impressionable child made her loyal to them.

She, with help from Kevin, had been the one to get Andrew out. She’d been captured by a SHIELD operative named Stephanie Walker who, instead of killing her as instructed, had broken through her conditioning and convinced her to defect. The information she gave SHIELD allowed them to severely cripple Department X’s operations, although Andrew’s main handlers still haven’t been found.

Renee clears her throat. “And the Ravens? What happened to them?”

“Gone,” says Wymack. “Captain America’s team, the Howling Commandos, completely dismantled them. They tried to stage a last-ditch attack on the US by launching a plane full of bombs towards New York, but Captain America himself brought the plane down harmlessly into the ocean.”

“...And now he’s travelled here from the past?” asks Reynolds, returning to Wymack’s earlier statement.

“More or less,” says Wymack. “Last week a survey team off the coast of Alaska found the Ravens’ plane. There was a perfectly preserved body at the flight controls.” He pauses dramatically. “He’s still alive.”

There’s a heavy silence before Kevin reacts. “What? How is that possible?”

“Wymack said he was enhanced,” says Aaron. “He probably has a healing factor. I’m pretty sure that Andrew or I could survive being frozen.”

Boyd looks flabbergasted. “But he’s been there for, what, seventy years?”

“Seventy three,” says Kevin. “He crashed the plane in the spring of ‘45.”

“Are you planning on waking him up?” asks Nicky. “Because personally I’m not sure I’d want to suddenly be seventy years in the future, with everyone I’ve ever known dead.”

“That’s not up to us,” says Renee. “We don’t have the right to make decisions for him.”

Wymack nods. “His brain scans look good, our doctors believe he can be revived.”

“And, what? Get recruited to be an Avenger?” asks Reynolds.

Wilds shrugs. “We have been talking about how we need another ground-level fighter. Renee and Andrew could use a hand.”

“He’s going to be a gibbering mess,” predicts Reynolds. “Not only is he coming straight from a war that’s probably left him with PTSD, he’ll be in the _future_. His brain will leak out of his ears.”

“We obviously won’t force him into the field if he doesn’t want it,” says Wymack, “and we’ll make sure he’s acclimated and treated for trauma before we clear him for duty.”

“Then why are you telling us about this now?” asks Aaron.

“He’s enhanced,” says Wymack, “and he’s about to wake up in a strange location after crashing his plane. We want Avenger backup in case he’s violent or he tries to escape. We do not want a confused, enhanced individual lost in New York.”

Wilds nods sharply. “When’s he due to wake up?”

Wymack smiles wryly. “This afternoon.”

* * *

SHIELD has placed Captain America in a sound stage, a replica of a 1940s hospital room. Andrew personally thinks that this is stupid: he’s going to find out he’s in the future soon enough, might as well rip off the band-aid.

He’s younger than Andrew expected, probably only in his early twenties, and smaller, too. He has the look of a half-starved fox. If he’s enhanced then he probably has a fast metabolism; finding enough food during the rationing that took place during WWII would not have been easy. It’s hard to tell because he’s sleeping, but he’s probably not much taller than Andrew and doesn’t have anywhere near his muscle mass.

Andrew had read Captain America comics as a child and the man depicted in them - a tall, muscular blond man with an impossible shoulder-to-waist ratio and a jawline to make grown men weep - resembles the actual Captain America as much as a male lion resembles a feral tomcat. Andrew thinks he prefers the look of the real thing, with his reddish-brown curls and cheekbones that could cut glass.

Andrew looks around the room and decides where he would make a break for it if he woke here. He doesn’t really expect that this kid will be able to assess a room like he can, but he covers that exit anyway. Renee and Reynolds in her armour guard the other entry points, with Kevin up in a sniper’s perch and Boyd hanging back, supporting Renee.

It’s nearly forty-five minutes after they get in position that anything happens, and then everything happens instantly. The kid does choose to try to escape past Andrew and he’s _fast_ , he moves like a blur. Andrew swings a punch at his midsection and he catches him in the stomach, mostly by luck. The kid crumples to the floor and Andrew pins him, noting that he’s stronger than average, but still much weaker than Andrew.

“You’re not going anywhere, Captain America,” he grits out, and then internally winces at how much he sounds like a second-rate villain from a cartoon.

“Fuck you,” the kid snarls, his ice blue eyes flashing angrily at Andrew.

“Would you prefer to be called Neil Josten?”

“How do you know who I am? Who are you?”

Wymack sweeps into the area, several armed agents with him. They look appropriately futuristic. Josten eyes them distrustfully. “Christ, Andrew, I said stop him not cripple him.” Wymack sighs as he looks down at Josten who is struggling in Andrew’s grip. “Sorry, kid,” he says. “But you’re not where you think you are. You’re safe.”

The kid gives him a look that is blatant in its disbelief. He struggles again and Andrew shifts his grip. Josten’s eyes widen in shock as he notices Andrew’s metal arms for the first time. “Are you a robot?” he asks, sounding unsure.

“Cyborg,” replies Andrew.

Josten blinks once. “Where am I?”

“The future,” says Wymack. “Welcome to 2018.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you all for the comments you left on the first chapter! I'm glad that you seem to like my story so far.
> 
> Warnings not tagged above for this chapter include: implied/referenced suicide

Andrew doesn’t see Captain America (he is literally unable to say those words, even in his head, without a sardonic lilt) for several months. He hears about him, though. SHIELD puts him through some kind of crash course on the last seventy years and then sets about trying to acclimatize him to the twenty-first century. Boyd is taken off active Avenger duty in order to babysit him. It’s the smartest choice: SHIELD obviously wants the kid to have friends among the Avengers and Boyd is the only one of them, despite Andrew’s codename, that has ever been a soldier in an active war zone. He has benefited from the VA and continues to volunteer his time helping vets so he knows all the correct things to say to someone who has recently returned from active combat.

Andrew wants to put the newcomer out of his mind, but it’s impossible. If Wymack gets what he wants then this ‘Neil Josten’ will join the Avengers, and Andrew is unwilling to let an individual - an _enhanced_ individual at that - with unknown loyalties and abilities that close. He complains to Bee, but she just points out that Andrew is generally resistant to change and therefore is inclined to dislike Josten. Perhaps he could try to get to know him, she suggests, before declaring him untrustworthy?

Andrew grumbles, but sets out to prove that Josten is not to be trusted. His first point of contact is Kevin, who has been buzzing excitedly about meeting a living legend.

He supposes that he and Kevin might be considered friends, but their friendship isn’t built on mutual interests or admiration, like normal friendships, or on shared life experiences, like his friendship with Renee. No, their relationship is built on favours, both given and owed, whether asked for or not. Kevin had been the one to inadvertently start it, ignorant as he was about Andrew’s need for reciprocity. Kevin had helped Renee free Andrew from _their_ control and Andrew was unwilling to let that debt go ignored.

Kevin had been working for SHIELD when Renee defected. He should have been there from his youth, following in the footsteps of his grandparents, but his mother had had a falling out with her family before he’d been born. She’d joined the circus (because apparently running away to join the circus was something that people actually did outside of fiction) disappearing into an environment where her spy parents couldn’t easily find her. Kevin didn’t know who his father was - if she’d known who it was, his mother had never told him - so he’d been raised by his mother with help from the motley crew of criminals under the employ of the circus. The circus itself was not strictly legal, attracting those without proper identification and those who didn’t want a paper trail attached to them to work there. Kevin had been found to have an aptitude for archery at a very young age, and had spent much of his time obsessively practicing until he never missed a target.

His mother had died when he was still quite young, leaving him without family or protections. His amazing skill at archery had garnered some attention and he’d been recruited by a man name Tetsuji who claimed that he worked for the government. Kevin had been trained as a sniper and became just as accurate with a gun as he was with a bow. He’d spent almost a decade working for Tetsuji until he’d stumbled across the information that Tetsuji was actually running a terrorist organization. He’d confronted the man, hotheaded and reckless in his anger. Tetsuji had had him shot, several times, and left for dead.

Someone had stumbled upon him, unconscious and close to death, and he’d been taken to a hospital. The police had processed his DNA trying to determine his identity, and SHIELD had been alerted when his familial connection to Kayleigh Day had been found. She’d taken him in and helped him heal, his uncle Wymack had offered him a place at SHIELD, and Kevin had provided all the information he could in order to take down the organization he had worked for. His betrayal at being used to further the goals of a terrorist organization led to his role of shutting down similar groups. When Renee was brought into SHIELD, still Natalia then and angry as a wet cat about how she’d been treated by Department X, Kevin had offered to help her destroy them.

It had not been simple: almost no one trusted Renee and it was widely believed that she still had loyalties to her former bosses. Many SHIELD higher-ups had wanted her imprisoned or worse. Their suspicions were confirmed when she’d said she wanted to bring in Andrew alive, calling him a victim. At that point in time Andrew, or more accurately the Winter Soldier, had been a bogeyman to SHIELD agents: an unstoppable metal-armed assassin whose list of confirmed kills included multiple SHIELD employees. The general consensus among the board of directors had been that if Renee _could_ track down the Winter Soldier she should kill him, or at the very least let them lock him up and throw away the key.

Wymack hadn’t agreed with that and, after listening to Renee’s description of how the Winter Soldier was under the complete control of his handlers, had quietly authorized Kevin and Renee to try to recruit him.

The fight that had occurred when the two of them had finally discovered where he was being held had been violent and lengthy. Andrew had fought with his trademark single-minded focus and Renee’s desire to incapacitate him rather than kill him put her at a disadvantage. Kevin had provided sniper support for her with his trick arrows; an electric one had eventually given Andrew enough of a shock to render him unconscious.

Andrew remembered waking up feeling awful, having already begun his withdrawal from the cocktail of drugs that were regularly administered to keep him compliant. He’d been sick for weeks, unaware until later about how Kevin had argued for his freedom; how Kevin had pointed out his potential usefulness with the brand new Avengers Initiative; how Kevin had worked hard to uncover his identity, proving that he was an American citizen and couldn’t be extradited.

Kevin had also been the one to make the connection between Andrew and Aaron, bringing news to both of them that their brother hadn’t died as they’d each suspected. When Andrew’s brain had healed to be less of an electrocuted shell, he’d been appalled to learn about everything that Kevin had done for him and Aaron. He did not want to be in debt to anyone, to have anyone who might think he owed them something. He had agreed to join the Avengers when Kevin asked, partly to pay back some of what he owed (and partly because SHIELD was likely to lock up both him and Aaron if they didn’t agree to join). He also decided that he would protect Kevin’s life and to help him out on his missions in an effort to make them even.

Which is how he finds himself on the world’s longest and most boring stake-out with only Kevin for company.

Andrew feels exposed. They are not in their uniforms, since that would make them recognizable, they are disguised as civilians. Despite the fact that it is very warm, Andrew is wearing a dark hoodie with the hood pulled up and dark gloves. He completes his disguise with jeans and his combat boots. The hoodie is useful because he can hide a fair number of weapons beneath it, but he still has fewer weapons than he likes. Kevin is dressed more appropriately for the weather, in a t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts, with a dark baseball cap pulled low in order to remain inconspicuous. Despite this, he still has his bow propped up beside him.

Kevin is trying to drum up Andrew’s excitement about the WWII-era superhero they thawed out a few weeks ago.

“He _experienced_ history!” Kevin says excitedly. He’s always had a strange appreciation for history, especially the history associated with his revered grandmother.

“So did all old people,” Andrew replies, sounding almost as bored as he is. “Didn’t your grandmother already tell you all about it?”

“But for him it was a couple of weeks ago!” Kevin enthuses. “From his perspective, he was in the Pacific theatre of World War II literally less than a month ago. There’s no chance that time has distorted the memory.”

“Then why aren’t you over at SHIELD bothering him instead of forcing me to sit and watch the dullest man ever as he does nothing?”

Kevin scowls. “I tried,” he says. “But Wymack sent me away, saying they didn’t want to ‘bombard the possibly traumatized war hero with irritating questions.’” He manages to make his air quotes sarcastic.

Andrew shoots him a look.  “I can’t believe that Wymack saying you couldn’t do something stopped you,” he says.

“He revoked my security access,” says Kevin sullenly. “Just cause I tried to climb through the vents to Cap’s quarters!”

“Wow,” says Andrew. “You’re using a nickname for him now. I feel like the next story you tell me about him will involve his skin being used for a lampshade so that he can be with you always.”

“Shut up,” mutters Kevin. “I’m not creepy.”

“Just stalking him.”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

The answer to that is yes, Andrew is curious about their throwback to the past, he wants to know everything he can about the man and how dangerous he is, but he’s never, ever going to admit that to Kevin. He shrugs instead. “He’s a relic that was supposed to have died seven decades ago. We should have left him buried in the ice.”

“Are you being serious right now?” asks Kevin.

“Aren’t I always?”

“I don’t know,” replies Kevin. “You only have the one expression. Kind of a bored/annoyed/angry murder glare. For all I know you were making a joke.”

“Yes,” says Andrew. “Because I’m such a funny guy.”

* * *

After he finishes helping Kevin with… he’s not actually sure what he and Kevin were doing. Tailing some guy for some reason; he really doesn’t care and isn’t going to ask. It was probably just busy work that Wymack assigned to keep Kevin away from annoying Captain America. Anyway, after he finishes up with that Renee asks if he’ll help her track down some potential leads. Once Department X had realized that she had defected and had access to SHIELD’s resources and power, they skittered into hiding like cockroaches. Andrew had helped Renee take down several leftover cells once his mind was his own and he always went with her when her contacts gave her information that could lead to _them_.

They were in a shitty motel in Belarus when the topic of SHIELD’s newest acquisition came up.

“So I met Neil,” Renee says lightly while painting her toenails.

“And how’s the brave and righteous Captain?” asks Andrew, settling on the second bed and picking up a book. He’s just finished his hourly perimeter check and is satisfied that their protections are in place.

Renee smiles at her feet. “You’re curious, huh?”

“No,” replies Andrew. “I couldn’t care less about him.”

Her eyes flick up to meet his for a few seconds. “If that were true, you wouldn’t have asked.” She sounds smug.

Andrew knows she’s right, but he just shrugs and starts pretending to read his book. This lasts until he realizes that she’s not going to elaborate unless he specifically asks her to. He calls her various less-than-complimentary names inside his head before he folds. “Spit it out,” he grumbles. “Since you’re so keen to tell me.”

She barks a laugh. “He wasn’t what I expected,” she admits. “I was expecting a soldier just home from war, twitchy and lost - you know the type.” He nods. “And he was both of those things, but he hides it well. I don’t think he’s an actual soldier; his body language wasn’t like Matt’s at all.”

“Whose was it like?”

“Yours,” she says shortly as she twists the lid back on her nail polish and gently blows on her toes. “I think he’s more like us than the others. He was wary of me.”

“He’s probably wary of everybody.”

“No, he was fine with Matt and Dan and Wymack. He was friendly, even. It was just me that set him on edge.”

“So he’s smarter than he looks?” he asks. Renee hums in agreement. “Isn’t that hard,” Andrew mumbles.

Renee raises her eyebrows, her dark eyes dancing in amusement. “He’s very pretty,” she says. “I’m sure you noticed. Isn’t that what sparked your interest?”

Andrew gives her a flat look. “My ‘interest’ as you call it was sparked by the fact that he’s an unknown enhanced individual that Wymack wants to place on my team.”

Her amusement doesn’t diminish. “ _Your_ team, is it?” she teases.

“Shut up, you know what I mean.” He pauses. “Did you discover anything about his past?”

A troubled look wipes away her amusement. “No,” she says, to his surprise. She is excellent at finding buried information. “The records aren’t the best, obviously, but I couldn’t find any mention of a Neil Josten until he broke four hundred people out of a Nazi prison camp and joined the SSR.”

“He’s a lie.”

Renee nods. “Probably one made up by the SSR.” She continued slowly, “But it doesn’t make any sense. He’s American, or they wanted everyone to think he was, so why did they pick ‘Josten’? It’s an uncommon last name but it’s most commonly used in Germany.”

“I see what you’re saying,” says Andrew. “Why didn’t they pick Johnson? Or Rogers? Or Brown? Something innocuous and generic. Do you think he’s actually American?”

“Why else would they pick that codename? Some of his pronunciations and word usage are strange, but he _is_ from the forties. He mostly sounds like an American.”

“So do you,” points out Andrew. “And you were born in Siberia.”

“Point,” she concedes. “I’m looking forward to hearing your opinion once you meet him.”

“I guess it’s too much to ask that the rest of the team will be sensible? That they’ll consider him dangerous and not let him join us?”

“Seems unlikely,” she says apologetically. “Dan and Matt already adore him, and there’s no way that Nicky won’t as well. Allison’s bound to like him, as long as he’s not righteous and judgmental - which he’s shown no sign of being, by the way - and you’ve already said that Kevin is basically in paroxysms of joy because he’s around. That only leaves you and Aaron to despise him.”

“You didn’t count yourself in there.”

“I’m withholding judgment until we’ve had a real conversation.”

Andrew grunts, and the conversation turns to other topics.

It takes them a few weeks to narrow down where the splinter cell is located, but when they do they dispatch it and its occupants with extreme prejudice. Renee tries to leave a couple agents alive for questioning, but they all spout the words, ‘Hail, Hydra,’ and bite down on their back molars, releasing a cyanide capsule. One of them manages to say, “Cut of one head and two more shall take its place,” before he dies.

“Hydra?” says Renee.

“Now where have we heard that before?” growls Andrew. “Kevin said that Hydra was wiped out by Captain America.”

“But that the Soviets recruited their scientists to work for the Red Room. Maybe Department X is going back to basics?” says Renee tentatively. “Maybe,” she continues, pointing at him as she warms to the topic, “they decided that they weren’t evil enough. One of them said, ‘We’re the worst, but are we the literal worst?’, and someone else said, ‘No, we’re not. Let’s be Nazis!’”

Andrew snorts. “Seems coincidental, though, this reemergence of Hydra as soon as their old enemy Captain America himself is unexpectedly alive after seventy years.”

“You don’t believe in coincidences,” Renee says.

“No,” says Andrew. “I do not.”

* * *

There’s an unpleasant surprise waiting for him at his regular morning workout the first day after he and Renee return to New York. Neil fucking Josten is laughing happily - like an _asshole_ \- as he laps Boyd easily on the track as Kevin looks on, a scowl trying to mask the fact that he’s making heart eyes at the new guy.

“No fair,” cries Boyd. “You have superpowers!”

“Maybe you’re just slow, old man,” Josten says, jogging backwards in front of Boyd.

“Old? Which one of us was born in 1920?”

“Ice years don’t count!” says Josten, as he takes off. Andrew has no idea if he’s going full speed, but all he can see is a fast-moving blur of colour. He wonders if he could beat him in a fight. Obviously hand-to-hand he could; he’s stronger and probably better trained. But it would be difficult to catch Josten and pin him down. He’d succeeded when Josten had just woken, but he’d been malnourished, disoriented, and confused. In the weeks since he’s seen him, Josten has put on a lot of weight, mostly muscle, and he looks properly rested. It’s a good look on him, thinks Andrew, before shutting down that line of thought completely.

Josten stops running next to Kevin, looking at him expectantly, not even having broken a sweat.

“Good,” says Kevin imperiously. “Let’s try sparring.”

Josten looks a little uncomfortable. “I don’t really have any training in that; my missions mainly involved me running really fast.”

“What about basic training?” asks Boyd. “You must have gotten that when you joined the army.”

“I never actually joined the army,” says Josten.

“But you’re a captain!” sputters Boyd.

“A symbolic one,” shrugs Josten.

“They just gave you a rank of captain in the US army?” asks Kevin faintly. Neil nods.

“Like they gave you your name?” Andrew speaks up suddenly.

Josten doesn’t startle, unlike both Boyd and Kevin, meaning that he probably already knew that Andrew was there. “You must be Andrew,” he says.

“We’ve met,” replies Andrew succinctly.

“I remember,” says Josten, his eyes mostly amused but also assessing. “It’s nice to meet you properly. I’ve been told that you were out of the country. How was your Avenging?”

“Fun,” says Andrew. “I met some of your old friends.”

“Oh,” asks Josten lightly. “I wasn’t aware that I had any friends left alive.”

“Well,” says Andrew. “Hydra says hello.” Kevin makes a surprised sound and Boyd just looks confused.

Josten pales and clears his throat. “I doubt it. In my experience, Hydra agents tend to spout rhetoric about human advancement and bringing order to chaos. That’s if they’re giving a monologue, though. If they’re dying they talk about two heads sprouting in their place, despite the fact that their logo has only _one_ head and multiple _tentacles_.” He looks back at Kevin. “It’s stupid, right?” he asks, before turning to face Andrew again. “Anyway, they’re not my friends. I thought I got rid of them back at the prison in Kreischberg. The SSR said that the Soviets were going to mop up the remnants. Apparently the organization wasn’t wiped out?”

“Apparently,” agrees Andrew not breaking his gaze.

“Alright,” says Kevin, stepping between them. “That's enough of that. I’m supposed to be assessing you. Stop your manly dominance stare-off.” He practically drags Josten to the sparring mats.

“You know,” says Josten conversationally, “sometimes I forget that you’re related to Kayleigh and then you go and say something like that. Do you think bossiness is hereditary?”

Boyd laughs, but Kevin just looks affronted. “I’m not _bossy_ ,” he says primly, spitting out the last word as if it has a bad taste.

“Of course not,” says Josten consolingly. “Now tell me what it is that you want me to do, exactly.”

Kevin is mollified and immediately starts bossing Josten around.

Andrew watches Kevin put Josten through his paces closely. Josten really is quite inexperienced at hand-to-hand combat, as he’d claimed, but he’s a quick learner and is talented with both a gun and a knife. Put those together with his speed, and… well, Neil Josten is going to be a problem.

* * *

He's sitting in the darkness in the chair with the best sight lines when Wymack gets home. Wymack removes his shoes and drops his briefcase on the floor before placing his keys in the bowl where he keeps them. Then he rubs his temples.

“You know, I really hate coming home to find you here,” he says without looking at Andrew.

“I know,” replies Andrew.

Wymack turns to him. “Where's Abby, then?”

“Still at the tower,” responds Andrew. “She's all caught up in an experiment with Aaron. She said to tell you that she'll be home late.”

Wymack looks briefly bemused. “You went to check in with her?”

“This whole menacingly waiting for you in the dark shtick wouldn't be nearly as effective if she were happily bustling around in the background.”

“Well at least you're aware of how needlessly dramatic you're being,” sighs Wymack. “She say anything else?”

“She said that I could help myself to the raisin bread on the counter,” says Andrew.

Wymack grimaces. “I don't suppose you left any, did you?”

Andrew shrugs unapologetically. “I have a supersoldier metabolism.”

Wymack sighs again, more deeply this time, and slumps onto the couch. “What do you want?”

“I want to drop Captain America into an active volcano.”

“This is what I appreciate about you, Minyard: you always go for the calm, rational approach. _No_ , we are not murdering him because you don't like him.”

“He's a dangerous liar,” protests Andrew. “You have no idea who he was before he was Captain America.”

“No,” agrees Wymack, “but I know who he was after, probably better than most. Kayleigh trusted him.” He stands and crosses the room to pull a photo album off a bookcase. He flips through it before finding what he wants and brings it back over to Andrew. It's an old photograph, yellowed with age, which depicts Neil Josten standing arm in arm with a dark-haired white woman. Squint as he might, he can't see Kevin in her face, although the shape of her nose and chin resemble Abby’s. “So he has secrets,” says Wymack. “Who doesn't? We work for a spy agency.”

“He's dangerous,” repeats Andrew.

“So are you,” replies Wymack. “So are Renee and Aaron.”

“Fine,” says Andrew curtly, getting up to leave. “If you won't do anything, I'll take care of it myself.”

Wymack groans but when he speaks his tone is deadly serious. “Don't do anything extreme,” he cautions. “No, Andrew, listen. There is only one future I can think of for you if you make an enemy of Neil Josten.”

Andrew stops, attention caught.

“That kid is fast and smart and I don’t think he’s shown us all he can do. You don't want him for an enemy,” says Wymack. “Also, if there is a conflict between the two of you, or if you kill him, SHIELD’s board of directors will step in. Who do you think they'll favour: the man who, because of years of comics and propaganda, they believe to be an advocate for truth, justice, and the American way, or the man who worked as an assassin for terrorists? There are already those among them who want to put you in an underground prison cell and bury it in concrete - both you and Aaron. Don't give them a reason to.”

“You're on the board of directors,” says Andrew.

“I'm only one member,” replies Wymack, sounding exhausted. “Andrew. Be smart. Don't do anything you can't recover from.”

“Haven't you heard?” asks Andrew as he heads to the window to make an exit. “I'm practically invincible.”

* * *

A couple nights later, Andrew is smoking on the roof of Avengers Tower. He’s found a small, secluded alcove up there where SETH has no surveillance. The AI still clearly knows that he’s here, but it makes Andrew feel better that he can’t be seen on camera.

When he’d first moved into the tower he’d come up here all the time. Renee had shadowed him the first few times, worried that he may be suicidal, but that wasn’t why he was drawn here. It was the only place he was able to feel, his instinctual fear of heights cutting through the grey monotony of daily life. Now that he’s recovering he doesn’t need to use to roof to force feeling anymore, but he still spends time here most evenings when he doesn’t want to sleep.

His solitude is rudely intruded upon when the stairwell door bangs open and the current bane of his existence appears, breathing heavily. He watches for a while, but Josten doesn’t do anything but grip the railing and stare out at the city.

“If you’re going to throw yourself off the tower, could you hurry it up? You’re intruding on my smoke break,” Andrew finally says, breaking the silence.

Annoyingly, Josten doesn’t start. It should be easier to startle someone who recently was in a warzone, shouldn’t it? He must have a hyper awareness of his surroundings, much like Andrew himself.

Josten doesn’t look at him, but his mouth curls into a half-grin. “Do you think it would kill me?” he asks, looking down.

Andrew can’t help his instinctive shudder at the thought of falling from this height. “You’d be a pile of blood and viscera.”

“I’m not convinced,” says Josten. “I thought that crashing a plane full of bombs into the ocean would finish me off, but instead I’m here.” He turns towards Andrew, spreading his arms out. “Even if I do throw myself off the tower, who’s to say that I won’t wake up in the year 2090?”

“Discuss your issues with your therapist.”

“And you’re certainly not that,” notes Josten. “Can I have a cigarette?”

Andrew considers denying him just to be petty, but in the end he passes over his pack and his lighter. Josten lights up, and tosses the objects back to Andrew before moving several feet away and lying down. He takes a single drag on his cigarette, but then just holds it above his face, watching the smoke curl upwards.

Andrew’s not sure what’s brought Josten here, but he seems to have something on his mind so he waits.

“Nathan Wesninski,” Josten says after a couple minutes.

Andrew freezes. He’s familiar with the name, very familiar. Nathan Wesninski was an American-turned-Nazi scientist whose serum Luther Hemmick had been trying to perfect. The same serum that flows through both his and Aaron’s bodies. And apparently Neil Josten’s as well. He’ll have to talk to Aaron about this; see what he’s found from testing whatever samples he’s acquired from Josten.

“He was the head of Hydra. Injected me with his serum. I killed him when I destroyed the factory in Kreischberg.” Josten pauses for a long time. “He was my father,” he eventually says, swallowing heavily as if he’d had to force the words out. “That’s why I got a new identity when I joined the SSR.”

“Why are you telling me this?” asks Andrew.

“It was heavily implied that you were going to attempt to kill me because you don’t know anything about my past.”

“I still don’t trust you.”

“I don’t expect you to. But I’d like to stay anyway.”

Andrew considers. Mostly he wishes that Josten had never been defrosted in the first place, but he knows that changing the past is impossible “No promises,” he says. “Why do you even want to stay? Your war is over.”

Josten laughs thinly. “Doesn’t feel like it,” he mutters, before speaking up. “Everybody that I’ve ever known is dead. Other than for the seven or so people I’ve met since waking up, I don’t know a single soul on Earth. Why would I want to leave?”

“You’re just a walking tragedy, aren’t you?”

“Seems so,” says Josten wryly. He grounds out his cigarette and gets up to leave. He heads towards the stairs, but turns back to Andrew just before he gets there. “One quick question: is the ceiling voice an asshole to everyone?”

“No,” says Andrew, raising his eyebrows and feigning surprise. “It must just hate you specifically.”

“The Monster's lying,” SETH’s voice pipes up. “I mean, I _do_ hate you, Shortbus, but I hate him and his gremlin twin, too.”

“Great,” says Josten. “I was excited to learn that the future has robots but it turns out they’re all jerks.”

“I told you, I’m a cyborg,” argues Andrew.

“It was lovely speaking with you, Andrew,” says Josten.

“Likewise,” says Andrew. “You can hang around for now, but I’m still probably going to end up killing you.”

Josten’s eyes shine. “You’d have to catch me, first,” he says, and then is gone in a blur of colour.

“Show off,” mutters Andrew, and stubs out his cigarette.

* * *

Andrew’s back in the training room the next day, keeping an eye on Josten’s progress. It’s imperative that Andrew have a good grasp of his abilities if he ever has to put him down. Or, he thinks grudgingly, if they have to work together in the field.

Renee’s taken up a seat beside him.

“Kevin didn’t ask you to train him?” asks Andrew. Kevin can be stubborn and arrogant, but he isn’t stupid and wouldn’t give up an advantage. He knows that he’s incapable of teaching as well as Renee is.

“He did,” she corrects. “But I’m not going to do it until you decide whether he’s staying or not.”

Andrew nods. Josten doesn’t currently have a lot of insight on their fighting styles. It wouldn’t be smart to give anything away before Andrew makes up his mind.

Kevin is getting increasingly agitated because Josten keeps using his super speed to evade Boyd’s attacks, instead of blocking like Kevin instructed.

“You’re cheating,” Kevin growls. “Do it properly.”

“I can’t turn it off,” says Josten in exasperation. “Besides, no one can hit me if I keep moving.”

“Well, what happens if you’re fighting an enemy that neutralizes your power?” asks Kevin.

“I’d shoot them.”

“But if you had no weapons?” presses Kevin.

“I’d run away or hide.”

“What if you were cornered? And the only way out was hand-to-hand combat?”

“Well, in that _very likely_ scenario, I guess I’d die, Kevin,” shrugs Josten.

Renee chuckles softly.

Kevin, on the other hand, glowers. “What we do is not a game,” he says. “It’s life or death. If you are not up to par, you put the whole team at risk.”

Josten looks at him flatly. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Everybody calm down,” says Boyd, smoothly. “Neil, Kevin’s just being thoughtlessly intense. And Kevin, Neil’s recently been at war, it’s safe to say he understands life or death situations.”

“I didn’t think Captain America knew how to swear,” pipes up Andrew.

Josten rolls his eyes. “Swearing wasn’t invented in the eighties,” he says. “Don’t conflate me with that guy from the comic books. We have very little in common. Remember that I’ve spent the last two years surrounded by soldiers at war.”

“Actually, you spent the last two years as a popsicle,” says Reynolds, breezing into both the room and the conversation. She’s been out at her residence in Malibu for the past few weeks and whenever she’s gone for any length of time she likes to swan around and make herself the centre of attention upon her return.

Josten looks a little taken aback at her sudden appearance and watches her approach curiously.

“You know who I am, of course,” she says and then waits presumptuously.

“Er, no,” says Josten. Boyd snickers and Andrew thinks that he’s done this on purpose. Josten has seemed well informed on the rest of them, so it stands to reason that Boyd has neglected to mention Reynolds simply because of how predictably badly she’s going to react.

Reynolds almost stumbles to a stop, looking put out and confused. “I’m Iron Man,” she says.

“Oh,” says Josten nonplussed. “Man?”

“Yes,” replies Reynolds with a challenge in her voice.

“Alright,” says Josten agreeably. “Do you use he/him pronouns?” He slides a glance at Boyd, as if checking if he’d phrased the question correctly. Boyd looks like a proud parent.

Reynolds barks a laugh. “Oh, you adorable baby fox,” she practically purrs. “You have no idea, do you?” At Josten’s blank look, she launches into her favourite pastime - talking about herself. “I’m Allison Reynolds, owner and former CEO of Reynolds Industries.” She spreads her arms out wide. “I own this building and am the main financial backer of the Avengers.”

“I thought the Avengers worked for SHIELD?”

“Technically we’re a privately owned defense force,” explains Boyd. “But we’re currently contracted to SHIELD.”

“That way we can’t be forced into action we don’t agree with,” says Reynolds breezily. “We stay out of political conflicts.”

“Otherwise, I’m sure the president would be using us as his own personal attack force,” says Kevin darkly. “Probably against the media.”

“There are a lot of people who are trying to control and regulate us,” continues Reynolds, “but I’m basically richer than God and no one wants to piss off Reynolds Industries, so we’ve remained under our own control.” It’s probably the only thing that Andrew likes about Reynolds, this commitment she has to keeping the Avengers out of the hands of politicians and world leaders. He’d been worried, when he’d agreed to join, that he’d be giving up some of his reclaimed autonomy but she had promised him that he would always have the right to refuse a mission. There have been arguments between the six of them over whether to do missions or not, but she’s never forced any one of them to participate, even if she really wants them to. Andrew suspects that she has a lot of first hand experience of people attempting to control her.

“Why would Wymack suggest I join you, then?” asks Josten. “He’s SHIELD. Shouldn’t he want control over me?” The question is both more astute and more cynical than Andrew was expecting.

“He’s a pragmatic man,” speaks up Renee. “He doesn’t want control over you, what he wants is you to be here, fighting with us, so that when he calls upon us we’re as strong as possible.”

Josten nods slowly, putting the pieces together. “He has no leverage over me. He wants me active, not taking a long retirement in some remote area.” He looks around. “Is that true of everyone else? He couldn’t get you to join SHIELD?”

“Oh, he has plenty of leverage on most of us,” laughs Reynolds. “Not me, because I’m not sure there’s a person alive who could make me do anything other than exactly what I want. I’m pretty sure he’s shoved all of us together in the hopes that we’ll police each other. I mean, if Iron Man goes rogue the Avengers are the only ones who even have a tiny hope of stopping me.” She grins. “You couldn’t, though.”

Andrew’s pretty sure he could - he’s spent a lot of time studying Reynolds’ suits and SETH’s capabilities to prepare for the possibility of being her enemy; in fact, Aaron is the only Avenger he thinks he’s incapable of taking down. Not for sentimental reasons (he won’t admit that he has those, even though he knows he does) but because the Hulk is literally indestructible. Luckily that means that he no longer has to worry about Aaron’s safety, a welcome change from their childhood.

“Are you sure I couldn’t?” asks Josten easily, jokingly. “Convince me.”

Reynolds sounds delighted when she laughs. “There’s no way you can handle me, darling.” Josten flinches minutely at the term of endearment, piquing Andrew’s interest. “I designed and built my first Iron Man suit while being held captive in a cave, and I managed to look fabulous while doing so. You can’t even imagine what I can do with limitless resources while not suffering from starvation.”

“Captive in a cave?”

“Hmmm, yes,” says Reynolds. “You see, my daddy, Anthony Reynolds, was a mean old bastard who made billions designing weapons for the government. He was in his seventies when I was born and on his… fourth? fifth? whatever, I can’t remember - wife. I’m guessing he was mostly shooting blanks since between his multiple wives and mistresses I am his only child. DNA proven and everything, because he didn’t believe it at first. Anyway, I inherited all his genius and when I was young I tried to impress him: studying robotics, computer programming, materials… He never really cared for any of it, and when I told him that I had no interest in carrying on his legacy of weapons manufacturing he basically ignored my existence. I decided that sex, drugs, and partying were amazing coping mechanisms to deal with my daddy issues.” She scoffs, immediately downplaying the weight of that admittance. “Anyway, I was kidnapped off my yacht by a small group that wanted money and weapons from my father. I knew that he wouldn’t do anything to save me, so I had to save myself. I created my armour, blew them all to pieces, and came home, where I spent the next few years perfecting my suit in order to hurt groups like those that had held me hostage.”

“Huh,” says Josten, taking in her story. “I met Anthony Reynolds once.”

“Oh?” replies Reynolds, her tone light but somehow dangerous.

“Seemed like an asshole,” says Josten.

“That he was,” agrees Reynolds with a smile, clearly having been won over by their newest recruit.

“You named yourself Iron Man?” queries Josten.

“No,” says Reynolds righteously. “My suits are completely sexless - red and gold and shiny. But the _second_ I started flying around, fighting crime, the media was assigning gender and naming me Iron Man. You should have seen the looks on those reporters faces when I told them that _I_ was Iron Man. Then they tried to change the name: to Iron Woman or Iron Maiden - which, granted is a pretty awesome name - but I resisted. I _am_ Iron Man and I’m a better Iron Man than any _man_ could be. Hopefully some people will think twice about their ingrained misogyny.” She nods forcefully.

“Can I see the robot suit?” asks Josten eagerly.

“ _The_ suit, he asks, as if I only have _one_ ,” laughs Reynolds. “But yes, let’s go see. We’ll have to talk about your super-suit, too.”

“My what?”

“If you’re going to be an Avenger, you need to dress the part,” explains Reynolds. “I’ve been brainstorming. With your speed, you’re going to need something skin-tight to reduce drag… with incredibly low friction material… but you’re also going to need ballistic protection… definitely no cape… oh, and your boots!” Josten is already looking a little overwhelmed as Reynolds steers him out of the training room.

Renee smiles. “I always like it when she turns into Edna Mode,” she says. “Want to spar?”

“Sure,” agrees Andrew. “But only for a bit. I need to go talk to Aaron.”

* * *

Andrew shudders imperceptibly before he makes his way into Aaron’s lab. He doesn’t understand how his brother can be comfortable in such a setting. They’d spent their childhood in and out of different labs. They hadn’t actually known that they were test subjects until they were teenagers; Dr. Hemmick had told them and the other twins that they all suffered from a rare disease that he was trying to cure. While the other children died from the 'disease' Andrew worried non-stop about Aaron succumbing. It wasn’t until he stepped out of the Vita ray machine knowing that he was strong and healthy and seeing Luther’s disappointment that he realized the truth.

Aaron had destroyed the research facility after the Gamma ray chamber had exploded, rampaging as the Hulk. He’d woken, naked and confused, several hours later. He’d stolen some clothes from a nearby house and tried to make his way back to where he’d come from, only to hear of the explosion and destruction of the facility, and the deaths of his brother and the only adult role models that he had ever known. He was aware that because of the serum and the radiation that something had happened to him, that he was responsible for the damage. He was afraid that if he contacted the authorities that he would be blamed, arrested, and studied. There was only one person alive that he knew, so he found a nearby payphone and called Nicky who was away at college.

Nicky had come for Aaron immediately, moving them into his parents’ house. He listened to Aaron’s story and promised to protect him. Growing up, he’d also been told that all of his ‘cousins’ were suffering from a rare illness, but in later years he’d become suspicious of his parents’ research. Hearing Aaron’s description of what had happened made want to try to right the wrongs his parents had committed.

It hadn’t been long before stress and anger made Aaron transform into his alter-ego for the second time, with Nicky as a witness. They realized that the discredited eyewitness reports of a monster were not that far fetched. The house had a reinforced basement where Luther had often performed experiments that they were able to transform into a ‘Hulk room’, a place where Aaron could smash without causing too much property damage or drawing attention.

Aaron threw himself headfirst into his studies: he needed to learn everything he could in order to reverse what had been done to him. He got a PhD in genetics and had quietly set up a research program when SHIELD had approached him. They’d been keeping an eye on him and Nicky for years and had offered him a place with the Avengers, and a lab where he could continue his studies into superhumans. They’d also let him know that Andrew hadn’t been killed, that he’d recently been recovered from the people who had controlled him for the last decade, and that they could be reunited as soon as Andrew’s deprogramming was complete.

“Andrew,” says Aaron in surprise as Andrew enters his lab. He’s aware how much Andrew hates it.

“What have you found out about Josten?” Andrew gets right to the point.

Aaron sighs. “There is such a thing as doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“You’re not a medical doctor, you’re a researcher,” argues Andrew. “And he’s not your patient.”

“That still doesn’t make it ethical to tell you,” says Dr. Katelyn Ross, coming into the lab. She’s a biochemist, a member of a team of scientists of different disciplines that work with Aaron. Their main focus is studying enhanced individuals, but they also end up having to deal with all the sciencey shit that the Avengers drag back to the tower.

Andrew gives her a blank look. She’d developed a painkiller specifically for him, one that doesn’t make him drowsy. He hadn’t asked her for it, but she’d apparently noticed that he always refused the other painkillers that were actually strong enough to affect him - they all made him fall asleep, leaving him vulnerable. In return for this kindness, he hasn’t tried to scare her away from the tentative relationship that is developing between her and Aaron, but that doesn’t mean he likes her.

“I don’t know much, anyway,” says Aaron. “He’s not super keen on doctors or labs. From the blood samples that I’ve gotten I think his serum might be similar to ours, but it was integrated in a very different way.”

“We’re definitely going to have to find a way to coax him in for most tests,” says Katelyn thoughtfully. “Abby managed to corral him for his required physical and he wouldn’t even make eye-contact with her.”

“That may not have been about her being a doctor, though,” says Aaron thoughtfully. “She’s his ex-girlfriend’s daughter, isn’t she? Can you imagine? You wake up and it’s seventy years later and your girlfriend has a kid who is old enough to be your own mother?” He shudders.

“Aw, that’s surprisingly empathetic of you, babe,” coos Katelyn.

Aaron shrugs, but his cheeks colour a little at the term of endearment. Andrew doesn’t think it means much; Katelyn’s one of those strange friendly and affectionate people who commonly use pet names. “I don’t like the guy, but I can understand,” he says. “I don’t have any sense of time passing when the Other Guy is in charge. What if one time I regain control and years have passed?” His gaze is far away. “What happened to him is basically my worst nightmare.”

* * *

It’s about a month later that Josten joins the Avengers for the first time on a mission. The suit that Reynolds designed for him is streamlined and navy blue, with a few white accents and a white star on his chest. Nicky is distraught; he and Reynolds had tried to convince Josten to wear something more reminiscent of the Captain America cartoons: making him into a walking red, white, and blue patriot. Josten had steadfastly refused. The white star is as much concession as he’s willing to make, and even that causes him to grumble on the quinjet as he ties his navy bandana around his head and adjusts the knives on his wrists. He also has a pair of goggles that are hanging loose around his neck, which he uses in combat to keep the wind from blurring his vision when he moves quickly.

The fight goes surprisingly well. There are large mechanical spiders attacking the Bronx, but they’re dispatched quickly. For each spider, Josten attaches a rope to one of its legs and zips around it as fast as he can. The spiders get so tangled that they crash to the ground as if they’re AT-ATs at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back. Reynolds makes note of this, and then is appalled that Boyd hasn’t introduced Josten to Star Wars yet.

Josten works well with the rest of them; he’s clearly experienced at being part of a team. He’s a little more unsure around Renee and Andrew (he hasn’t seen them train, still, so he doesn’t know their styles or capabilities).

Bee smiles happily as Andrew tells her this a few days later at their regular session.

“I think this has been good for you, Andrew,” she says warmly. “I know that you were hesitant about accepting someone else onto your team, but I’m pleased with the way that you’ve been trying to get to know him instead of threatening to kill him.”

“I have threatened to kill him,” says Andrew. “Repeatedly.”

“Still,” she says, “this is the most engaged with your teammates that I’ve ever seen you. This seems to have forced you out of your solitude a little.”

It’s true, Andrew realizes. He’s been watching most of Josten’s training sessions, frequently with Renee, and he sometimes even consents to accompanying Kevin, Boyd, and Josten to the common floor for food after the sessions are finished. He doesn’t trust Josten - he’s still far too cagey and unwilling to talk about his past - but he thinks that he can probably accept that he’s part of the team.

These thoughts are all swimming in his head as he allows Nicky to cajole him into team lunch: apparently Josten is giving his first public interview and they’re all going to watch it.

Josten seems a little overwhelmed when he hears this, but Nicky is adamant. They’ve been working together for PR purposes, and Nicky wants to see how the interview goes since it’s step one on his elaborate plan on how to introduce the public to the newest Avenger.

“You’re sending him on Kathy Ferdinand’s show?” asks Boyd in disbelief as Nicky prepares to send Josten off to his live interview. Andrew understands his confusion. Kathy Ferdinand has a fairly popular show, but it airs on FOX and has a much more politically right-wing audience than is usual for Avengers PR.

“Please, conservatives _love_ Captain America,” says Nicky. “They think he’s a symbol of the ‘good old days’. Your popularity is low with that demographic, and he’s the only one of you that can court them. The rest of you are too not-white, too foreign, too queer, too female, or too all-of-the-above for them to respect.”

“Um,” says Josten, looking nervous. “You know that it’s the guy in all the propaganda they like, right? The patriotic man’s man?”

“You’re the only who actually did all the things in those comics, aren’t you?”

“More or less. We were much more organized and less showy. I didn’t really spend a lot of time talking about my love for my country.”

“It’ll be fine,” says Nicky with a careless hand wave. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

He should have known better than to tempt fate like that.

“Well,” says Kathy Ferdinand on the television, after her audience finally calmed down after the introduction of Captain America. “Captain America. I never thought I’d have the pleasure.”

“I certainly didn’t expect to be here, either,” replies Josten.

“Of course not,” she says with a shark-like smile. “Now, we’ve all seen the movies so we all know Captain America pretty well, but we’re much less familiar with the man behind the cowl. You, Neil Josten, are a mystery.”

“Well, that makes sense. I was a covert operative.”

“Yes, of course,” Ferdinand simpers. “But you can tell us a little about your missions, can’t you? Some of them have been declassified enough that they were turned into movies! Like your liberation of a POW camp in Austria. That was your first mission, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” says Josten. “That’s when I got my codename.”

“And how did that come about? I’m imagining rousing speeches and lifting the American troops’ morale.”

He laughs. “No, it was a joke actually.”

“A joke?” she echoes.

“Yeah,” says Josten. “The POWs were all convinced that they were going to die in captivity. It was believed that not even Captain America himself could save them. So after we blew up the factory, they started joking that they were wrong: that Captain America _had_ saved them. My friend Jim thought it was the funniest thing, because although technically I am American, I’d been living in different European countries for over a decade. I was even still using a British accent at the time.” He shrugs. “Afterwards, it was easier to keep the name because it made the US army happy and I could use it to get concessions from them.”

“Oh,” says Ferdinand, faltering a little. “But you _are_ American?”

“I was born here,” he says. “But I left when I was nine. I don’t really have an attachment to the country.”

“So waking up in the twenty-first century must have been a shock!” she says, veering away abruptly from their previous topic.

“It certainly was. I’m still not convinced that I’m not having a lucid dream.”

“I’m sure it must seem strange, how far we’ve come from traditional values.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean that all these people with different… lifestyles nowadays. Must be strange for you.”

Josten considers. “Not really. History is much more queer than people give it credit for.”

“Oh!” says Ferdinand, shocked. “That word has a different meaning than it used to.”

“Oh. Sorry. Much more gay, then.”

“Again, that word means something different now,” she says, with a tinkly laugh.

“If you say so,” says Josten.

She blinks, then gets back on track. “What are the biggest changes you’ve seen? I’m sure that you’ve noticed a lot of good changes, but also a lot of bad changes.”

“Oh, definitely,” replies Josten. “I mean, it’s great that there are vaccines now and how far medicine has come. But then it’s pretty terrible that some parents aren’t vaccinating their children and that poor people still have such a barrier to access medical care. That the government doesn’t seem to care that some people are dying because they can’t afford hospitals or medicine, despite the fact that those should be basic human rights.”

“But-”

“The strides that have been made towards equality are encouraging,” continues Josten, “but the fact that society is still inherently racist, misogynistic, and homophobic is quite disheartening.”

“You seem angry,” ventures Ferdinand.

“I _am_ angry,” says Josten. “I expected things to have improved since my time. For instance, there is no accurate information about my team, the Howling Commandos. Of the six of them, half of them were women, only one was white, only one was American, two were Muslim, and none of them were straight. Yet in media they were all white washed into buff American men, erasing the enormous contribution that those people in particular - and the groups that they represented - had in the Allied victory.”

Kathy Ferdinand is staring, her mouth gaping open like a fish.

“Also, I’m worried about your president,” says Josten. “I know all about fascist white supremacist bullies. I lived in Germany between 1936 and 1938.”

He pauses and when Ferdinand still isn’t able to say anything, turns to the camera, a disappointed look on his face. “Anyway, America, I expected a lot better from you in the past seventy years. Get your act together. Captain America is disappointed in you.”

The show abruptly switches to commercials.

Nicky is practically hyperventilating on the couch. Reynolds is gleefully typing on her phone, telling them all about how this interview is trending on Twitter.

“So I’m in love with Neil,” says Boyd.

“It wasn’t… too bad, was it?” asks Kevin tentatively.

“He _compared the president to Hitler_ ,” shrieks Nicky at a pitch that is almost impossible to hear.

“He’s not the first one to do so,” says Renee.

“He’s _Captain America_!” says Nicky. “He’s supposed to _love America_! And make the Republicans love the Avengers!” He moans dramatically. “I thought he was going to be the _easy_ one for me to deal with! An American-themed war hero who fought Nazis! That should be so much easier to spin than ‘Russian assassin’ or ‘brainwashed killer’ or ‘destructive rage monster’! What is he _doing_ to me?”

Andrew slips out of the room, distancing himself from Nicky’s dramatics. He goes back to his room and does yoga for a while, trying to stop his brain from whirring with thoughts about Josten. He’s much more interesting than Andrew gave him credit for. He wonders how long he’ll remain entertaining.

The next time he sees Josten is that evening, up on the roof. It’s an echo of the last time: Josten bursting through the door, short of breath, and then watching the city in silence.

“Fine,” Andrew says abruptly. “You can stay.”

Josten turns an inscrutable look at him. “Does that mean you’ve cancelled our trip to Kilauea?” he asks.

Andrew stares at him blankly.

Josten grins. “You wanted to throw me in a volcano, and it’s the most active one on Earth.” He lowers his voice as if he’s telling a secret. “I looked it up on The Google.”

Andrew has to stop his lips from twitching into a smile at Josten’s smugly proud face. He wonders if Josten’s assertion that none of the Howling Commandos were straight includes their leader. His thoughts screech to a halt and he wants to bash his head onto the concrete rooftop.

Josten is going to be a Problem (with a capital p), but not to the team as Andrew had originally thought. No, Neil Josten, with his distracting eyes and asshole personality, is definitely Andrew’s own personal problem that he doesn’t think he’s emotionally equipped to deal with. Bee’s going to have a field day when he tells her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will probably take a little longer to post than this one did.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news: New chapter! Bad news: It's going to take a while before the next chapter is written as I'm pretty busy and heading out of town for a bit. Hang in there! It'll be posted eventually!
> 
> Thank you for all your amazing comments! They're definitely helping me push through my frustration with this fic!

Now that Andrew's rescinded his objection to Neil joining the Avengers, Wilds schedules intense team training sessions. Only Aaron is exempt, since his role on the team is mainly to destroy everything in his vicinity while everybody gets out of his way.

Andrew finds himself working with Neil and Renee, the three of them planning tactics for ground assaults. Renee and Andrew are already able to fight together seamlessly. Neil watches them intently as they spar and Renee offers to teach him.

He shakes his head. “It’s no use. If I stay in one place long enough to fight, then I’m not using my biggest advantage.” He goes on to explain some of the tactics that he used with the Howling Commandos and suggests way to adapt them in order to provide support to Andrew and Renee. He launches into a description of a game that Kayleigh Day invented that sounds like some strange hybrid between keep-away, pinball, and squash. Apparently, the Howling Commandos spent an inordinate amount of time being bored (“War is like that,” explains Neil. “Mostly sitting around and waiting: for transport, for orders, for troop movements. Usually you’re muddy and wet and miserable, and bored out of your skull.”) and had used this game to hone their skills and keep themselves entertained.

Reynolds overhears his description and perks up like a dog catching a scent. She’s happiest when she’s working in her lab, so she’s been restless with all the recent training. “We can do that!” she says, excited. “But better! We have way more resources.”

Before long, Reynolds has converted one of their training rooms into a game room. The room is large, at least three stories high, and equipped with reinforced walls and obstacles of different heights. The walls can be climbed - there are both ropes and handholds - and a variety of robots have been programmed to either help or hinder. Boyd dubs the game ‘Avengers Pong’ and Kevin almost instantly becomes intensely competitive about it. Rules and variations are invented at random and it’s difficult to keep track of who is on which team, or if there are even teams at all.

Nicky starts taking short videos of their games and posting them on YouTube, where they rack up millions of views. Any video that shows Neil is very popular, even if he’s not using his powers. Ever since his interview, he’s been a source of interest for the public. The political right are denouncing him, demanding that he give up his title, while lefties are calling him a hero of the people. The president has tweeted many, many disparaging things about him, calling him unworthy of the name America.

Neil actively reacts to all this online commotion on his verified Twitter account for a few hours before Nicky changes his password so that Neil no longer has access. He assigns an intern to run Neil’s account for him.

(“There were two rules, Neil!” Nicky says in exasperation. “What were they?”

“No being political and no feeding the trolls,” Neil answers sullenly.

“And what did you do?”

“It’s not my fault, Nicky!” Neil protests. “The people on the internet are wrong and they need to know how wrong they are!”)

Nicky doesn’t let Neil say anything as he films them playing Avengers Pong.

Andrew likes the game more than he is willing to admit. It allows him to keep his reflexes sharp and train different skills than his usual routine allows. There is also a very low chance that anything here will trigger a flashback; surprisingly _they_ were not big on allowing him to play loud, bright games.

Their game today is going well. Neil’s hit with a floor-is-lava ball (a rule made up by Boyd) making him climb one of the ropes along the wall, up to the top of one of the tall structures that dot the room. Andrew’s watching him: he’s personally incurred a weapons time-out so he’s not allowed to directly attack, but he can still indirectly hit his opponents. He acquires a metal disc, almost a large frisbee, and is trying to calculate the angle he has to throw it into the wall so that it ricochets into Neil when a shrill whistle pierces through the room.

“Commander Wilds,” says SETH. “Director Wymack is sending you information for a priority one mission for Sire and the rest of these assholes.”

“Alright,” says Dan. “Everybody up to the conference room. Game’s over. No one wins.”

Kevin complains about the fact that they don’t know who won all the way upstairs. He’s pretty adamant that his team should have been declared the winners.

“So,” says Neil as they settle around the conference room, waiting for Wilds to review the mission intel. “Allison, why does your AI call Dan ‘Commander Wilds’ while it calls me ‘shortbus’?”

Reynolds snickers. “The only thing I programmed was how SETH should address me. Everyone else is up to him.”

“What does he call everyone else?” asks Neil.

“Fly-boy, usually,” says Matt. “Sometimes ‘dude’.”

“Agent Walker,” says Renee.

Aaron rolls his eyes. “Fucknugget.”

“Douchecanoe,” sighs Kevin.

“Monster,” says Andrew.

Nicky scowls. “Once Allison deleted the subroutines that allowed him to call me homophobic slurs he’s mostly been calling me Jerk-off.”

“You know,” says Renee mildly, “everyone should really have the right not to be insulted in the place where they live.”

Reynolds sighs gustily. “Why do you have to be so reasonable?” she mutters. “Fine, fine, I’ll try to update SETH to be less insulting when we get back from whatever this priority one mission is, alright?”

“What?” says Nicky. “She just has to ask once, politely? I’ve asked you to fix that hundreds of times!”

“It’s not _your_ catsuit that she wants to get into,” says Boyd with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle.

“Okay, everyone,” says Wilds, walking in and cutting off whatever Reynolds was about to say. “One of SHIELD’s satellites has picked up some strange energy readings from an outpost in Croatia. We believe that it’s an AIM facility.”

“AIM?” asks Neil.

“Advanced Idea Mechanics,” supplies Reynolds. “It’s basically the sub-par evil version of Reynolds Industries. What kind of energy readings?”

“Gamma rays,” says Wilds. “SETH, pull up the outside view of the facility, please.” A hologram appears above the table. “It’s mainly subterranean, so air support is out. Matt, you’ll have boots on the ground for this one. Kevin, you’ll setup here to provide sniper support.” She points. “Allison, there are lookouts here and here which you will destroy. Then you’ll join Aaron at the front of the base and cause a distraction. Hopefully, we’ll lure out most of the personnel into the waiting arms of Iron Man and the Hulk.” She pinches her fingers in the hologram and spreads them, causing the view to change to the facility’s interior. “We’re sending in a STRIKE team with you to provide backup and to guard your egress route. Renee, Andrew, Matt, Neil, you’re to enter here, through this maintenance tunnel.” Pointing, she continues, “The energy readings are coming from here. Andrew, you’re on point to get the object that’s emitting the radiation since it’s least likely to negatively affect you. You, Matt, and Renee will take this route to the lab. Neil, you’re to check the rest of the base for anything of interest and to place explosives on the lower level so we can destroy the base once it’s cleared. Questions?” Her dark eyes are flinty as she surveys the room. “We don’t know what this object is, but knowing AIM it’s dangerous. We need to contain it. Wheels up in forty minutes.”

* * *

Andrew ends up sitting next to Neil in the quinjet. He's surprisingly twitchy.

“Stop fidgeting,” says Andrew.

“I can't help it,” says Neil, with a smile that looks more like a grimace. “I’ve only been on a plane once in my life.”

“The one you crashed?” asks Kevin bluntly.

“That’s the one,” says Neil.

“Well think about it this way,” says Boyd kindly. “Once this flight is finished than you’ll only have crashed fifty percent of the planes you’ve been on, and that number is going to decrease every time you get on a plane from now on.”

“I don’t get it,” says Reynolds. “Captain America was always jumping out of planes in the movies. How did you get from place to place during the war?”

“Boats, mostly,” says Neil. “Trains, walking, cars, trucks… a submarine, once. Most of the planes I ever saw were bombers, not transports.” He gives himself a little shake. “Your grandfather was fascinated with planes,” he tells Kevin. “He had no interest in flying in one - even though America had started training black pilots by then, so he could have. He told me that he just wanted to take one apart so he could see how it worked.”

“You remember him?” asks Kevin.

“Joe? Of course I do. It was less than three years ago that I met him,” says Neil impatiently. “I last saw him in London: he got a job with the SSR working in Reynolds’ workshop.”

“Yeah, he stayed on with Reynolds and worked for SHIELD once it was founded.”

The quinjet hits some turbulence - they’re somewhere over the Atlantic - and Neil’s face goes white. He sets his jaw in determination. Andrew’s also deeply unhappy about the rough ride but he’s much better at hiding it. Boyd launches into an absurdly cheerful story in a clear attempt to get Neil out of his head.

By the time they reach their destination, Neil’s back to his usual self, muttering, “I’m fine,” in annoyance as Boyd frets.

Andrew braces himself as they come in for a landing, letting his metal arms calibrate a few times before securing his mask in place and letting everything but the mission fade from his mind.

Reynolds’ distraction works, luring a fair number of AIM thugs out of the facility, although there is still resistance within the base itself. Andrew takes point, a gun in one hand and the other hand held up in front of him. He’s usually able to dispatch his opponents before they can get a shot away, but if they do he’s able to block them with his bulletproof metal hand.

As he’s nearing the central lab, Neil’s voice comes over the comms. “I’ve found prisoners,” he says.

“Do we need to call in medical evac?” asks Wilds.

“Negative,” says Neil. “They’re all dead in their cages. It looks like they were burned from the inside out.”

“From the inside?” asks Reynolds.

“I think they’re experimental subjects,” says Neil, a strange note in his voice. “I’ve seen stuff like this before.”

“We need access to their files,” says Wilds.

“The lab should have a terminal that I can link to SETH,” says Renee. “We’ll find out what they’re doing.”

They’ve reached the central lab, which is abandoned except for a couple scientists who surrender as soon as they see the Avengers. Boyd restrains the scientists and starts asking questions while Renee finds a terminal and inserts a USB device, creating a link to SETH so that he can download all the information. Andrew circles the containment field in the middle of the lab: a glowing blue cube is resting inside. He’s pretty sure this is where the radiation is coming from.

“There’s a case for transporting the cube,” says Boyd, pointing. One of the scientists is now sobbing, promising to tell them whatever they want to know. “She says it’s shielded to block the Gamma rays.”

“What is the cube?” asks Andrew.

“I don’t know!” the woman sobs. “We were trying to figure it out!”

“We’re almost finished out here,” says Reynolds. “Once SETH has the information and we’ve secured the object, we should blow this place and go home.”

“You just like making things explode,” says Renee. “SETH is seventy five percent finished the download.”

“I’ve cleared the lower level and placed the bombs,” says Neil, his voice has an echo and a lag over comms; Andrew assumes that he must be using his superspeed. “I’ll loop around the main level and rendezvous with the others in the central lab.”

“No, go meet with Iron Man and the Hulk when you’re finished,” says Wilds. “Falcon, bring those scientists out of the facility once Cap clears the main level.”

“Copy,” says Boyd, pushing the sobbing scientist towards Andrew. “Tell him how to lower the containment field and transport the cube.”

She’s slightly calmer now and is able to give instructions through her hiccups. Andrew keeps her close; if she’s giving false information he’s going to ensure that she’s also caught in the resulting fallout. By the time he’s secured the cube Neil has cleared the building and SETH has finished his download. He moves out with Boyd and Renee, keeping their captives in front of them.

Outside of the facility, the STRIKE team is waiting to take custody of both their prisoners and the cube.

“Knox!” says Boyd happily. “I didn’t know it was your team providing support!” He performs a slapping/handshake ritual with the STRIKE team leader.

“STRIKE two was out on assignment, so we got Avengers detail,” replies Knox. He then nods towards Andrew and Renee. “Walker. Minyard.”

The agent who approaches to relieve Andrew of the case with the cube is eyeing him warily. Andrew ignores him, handing off the case. After a couple more pleasantries between Boyd and Knox and some more backslapping, the three Avengers make their way to their own extraction point. The rest of the team is already on the quinjet. Aaron’s shrunk down to normal size and is passed out, still wearing his pants. Reynolds has designed a pair of pants that is able to adjust to Aaron’s shape so that he doesn’t end every mission naked. The energy required to change shapes always leaves him unconscious and vulnerable.

“Did you know that STRIKE one is here?” Boyd asks Kevin as the ramp to the quinjet closes behind him.

“Jeremy Knox is here?” says Kevin in response. “And I missed seeing him?”

“Oh, I’d forgotten about your massive crush on him,” says Renee, climbing into the copilot’s seat beside Wilds, who is completing her pre-flight checks.

“I don’t…” says Kevin, his cheeks flushing, “I don’t have a _crush_ on him. I respect him; he’s very good at his job.”

“Kevin has a kink for competent SHIELD agents,” Allison stage whispers to Neil.

“I do _not_.”

“Based on your dating history, you kind of do,” says Wilds apologetically as the quinjet takes off.

Neil takes a deep breath.

“Relax, darling,” says Allison, which only further ratchets up Neil’s tension.

“I’m fine,” Neil says through gritted teeth. “You can continue ragging on Kevin.”

* * *

Neil ends up on the roof that evening as is usual when he’s woken by nightmares. It happens a couple times a week. Usually he stares at the city, sometimes he asks for a cigarette, often he and Andrew exchange a few words.

Tonight, Andrew asks, “The prisoners? Or the plane?”

Neil gives a humourless chuckle. “The plane,” he says. “How do you handle it?”

Andrew makes an inquisitive noise.

“Flying everywhere,” Neil clarifies, “when you’re afraid of flying.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on,” says Neil. “I may have been more obvious about it, but you have your own tells. What’s your plane-related trauma?”

“Not everyone needs a bad experience to dislike flying.”

“True,” says Neil. “My experience of crashing a plane and waking up seventy years in the future is not universal.”

“I just don’t like heights.”

Neil stares at him. Then he looks out down at the ground, then back at Andrew. “Are you pulling my leg?”

Andrew considers whether or not he wants to explain himself. He doesn’t really see the harm, and, during their sporadic conversations, he’s learned that Neil is more likely to divulge information if Andrew does as well. “You’ve been told my history?”

“The bare bones version, I’m sure.”

“When I first started recovering from the brainwashing, I was incapable of feeling anything. All my emotions were muted and buried. But I was still afraid of heights.”

Neil gets it right away. “So you’d come up here to feel?”

Andrew nods.

“And now?”

“It’s a good place to smoke. Usually private.”

Neil quirks a half-smile, backs away from the railing and lays on the ground.

“Why does it bother you so much to be called darling?” asks Andrew.

Neil doesn’t answer right away. “You noticed that?” he asks with a sigh. “It’s what Kayleigh used to call me.”

“Were you two together?”

“Not in the way you mean,” says Neil, shaking his head. “I love her. It isn’t romantic, but I love her. She knows - knew - me in a way that no one else does. She was my pillar of strength when I needed support.” He pauses. “She’s my best friend. I miss her.”

Andrew thinks about what it would be like to find himself in a strange future without Renee or Bee and shudders. “I didn’t kill her,” he says.

Neil props himself up on his elbows and looks at him. “Was there a possibility that you might have?”

“There was speculation that her death might have been an assassination. I don’t know if it was, but I know it wasn’t me.”

“Well,” says Neil, lowering himself back to the ground. “Good for you?”

* * *

Andrew’s lounging on his couch and getting to an interesting plot point in his spy novel (which is very unrealistic and makes him snort in disdain at _how easily_ the characters would be caught if they were in the real world) when there’s a tentative knock on his apartment door. He sits up and stares at his door in confusion. No one’s ever knocked before. SETH always tells him if one of the others wants his attention and no one except the other Avengers has security access to his floor. The only person he allows in his apartment is Renee, and she always texts him to check if she can come over.

There’s another knock, more firm this time. He unwraps himself from his blanket and heads toward the door. He has three knives on him already, but he grabs a gun from his coffee table. Armed assailants wouldn’t be politely knocking, but he’d prefer to be over-prepared.

He opens his door to find Neil, who looks sheepish and is rubbing the back of his neck. “Hey,” he says.

“What is it?” asks Andrew. “Is something wrong?”

“No! No, everything’s fine,” says Neil, waving his hands. “I was just wondering if you wanted to… do something?” By the end of his question he sounds very uncertain.

“Do something,” repeats Andrew without inflection.

“It’s just… everyone’s gone,” says Neil a little helplessly. Andrew nods. After their mission in Croatia Wilds had cut back on their group training. Renee, Kevin, and Boyd had all returned to their duties at SHIELD and Reynolds had retreated back to her lab. Since Andrew and Neil don’t double as SHIELD agents or Reynolds Industries scientists, they suddenly have a lot of free time on their hands. Judging by Neil’s twitchiness he’s not happy about that. He reminds Andrew of Kevin whenever he’s been left to his own devices for too long.

“What did you have in mind?” asks Andrew reluctantly, thinking longingly about his blanket nest on the couch and the trashy spy novel.

Neil looks surprised that Andrew is humouring him. “Well, I’m pretty sure you’d punch me if I suggested more gym time or a game of Pong…”

“Pong isn’t a two player game.”

Neil shrugs. “Kevin and I made a two player variant,” he explains.

“Of course you did,” sighs Andrew. “The two of you are obsessed.”

“I was thinking lunch? Or maybe a movie? Matt has a list that I’m supposed to watch.”

Andrew doesn’t particularly want to watch a movie, but he has a sudden desire to do as Neil asks. “Fine,” he says. “But I’m bringing my book.”

It doesn’t start out that badly. Neil makes popcorn and shares it with Andrew and then makes more popcorn when Andrew eats all of the first batch. He occasionally says thing to Andrew, but he doesn’t seem to be waiting for answers. He seems perfectly content when Andrew just replies with disinterested ‘Hmmm’ noises. He’s still a little twitchy when the movie finishes, but he seems calmer overall.

“Did you like it?” asks Andrew, not that he cares about the answer.

“It was… fine?” says Neil. “Matt always wants me to like the movies more than I do. I think I’m missing something.”

“Nostalgia, probably,” says Andrew.

“Maybe,” says Neil looking thoughtful. “I didn’t understand a lot of the references.”

Andrew carelessly waves a hand towards the tablet that is sitting on the coffee table. “Ask the internet.”

After that, their afternoons together on the common floor become routine. Neil’s not bad company, usually leaving Andrew to his own amusements and periodically bringing him snacks. He’s spending more time on his tablet than watching movies: he says he prefers shorter films that require less attention and then proceeds to spend four days in a row watching cat videos on YouTube.

One day, he’s fallen into a Wikipedia spiral and is squawking indignantly about something when Andrew suggests he edit it.

Neil’s quiet for a couple beats. “What do you mean, edit?”

“Anyone can edit Wikipedia articles,” he says.

“Oh,” says Neil consideringly and is quiet for a long time.

“Neil,” says Nicky about an hour later, coming out of the elevator. “Are you changing the Captain America and Howling Commandos Wikipedia pages?”

“Yup,” replies Neil. “It was wrong and Andrew said I could.”

Nicky sends Andrew an annoyed glare. “Andrew’s not in charge of your PR.”

“Are you monitoring his internet usage?” asks Andrew.

“After the Twitter disaster, of course I am,” cries Nicky.

“Andrew said anyone could edit it,” says Neil petulantly.

“You’re not allowed,” says Nicky. “Stop trying to make scandals.”

“Cheer up, Nicky,” says Andrew. “At least he hasn’t found Reddit yet.”

“Reddit?” asks Neil.

“It’s a news aggregation website, with a social component.”

“Don’t even…” says Nicky.

“He could sign up for an AMA,” says Andrew.

“He’s not allowed to give his opinion on the internet!” says Nicky. “We want people to like him!”

“Why?” asks Andrew. “People are the worst.”

“Just because _you_ would be perfectly happy if everyone in the world dropped dead and left you alone…”

Andrew watches as Neil painstakingly types on the tablet, muttering, “Reddit,” under his breath as he searches for the correct keys. “Not everyone,” he says absently to Nicky.

* * *

A couple weeks later, Andrew slouches into the common room for breakfast. He doesn’t normally like getting up early and he usually feeds himself in his apartment, but he’s been talked into playing Pong with Neil and Kevin this morning. Also, he’s recently learned that if he deposits himself at the dining table or at the island in the kitchen while either Kevin or Neil are making breakfast then they will feed him, which is a nice discovery.

He sits at the table and Neil brings him a cup of strong coffee, fixed with milk and sugar just as he likes, and Kevin starts piling a protein-rich breakfast on his plate.

Reynolds is the only other occupant of the room; she’s sitting at the far end of the table, fiddling with some electronic device with a screwdriver. She has a tall glass of green sludge in front of her, her preferred breakfast.

Neil and Kevin make small talk as Neil slices up a variety of fruit and splits it up between himself, Kevin, and Andrew. Bee’s been happy about how much Andrew’s been socializing lately, but he would have started this years ago if he’d known that he could be lazy and still get complete meals.

“Your Majesty,” says SETH, disturbing the quiet.

“Hmm?” says Reynolds distractedly, still focusing on the object in her hands.

“Agent Muldani is here to drop off the package from SHIELD.”

Kevin sits up straighter as Reynolds directs SETH to let Muldani up to see them. “What package?” he asks in interest.

“Remember that cube we found in an AIM base a couple months back?” asks Reynolds. “The research files we downloaded show that AIM believed that the cube could somehow induce enhancements, but SHIELD hasn’t been able to analyze it. SETH’s scanners are better than anything they’ve got, so they sent it here for study.”

“What’s SHIELD going to do if you find it _can_ give people superpowers?” asks Neil.

Reynolds shrugs. “I assume they’re going to give people superpowers.”

“It should be destroyed,” says Neil. “It’ll only cause problems.”

Kevin looks like he’s about the disagree, but the elevator opens and a tall, extremely well-muscled brown-skinned woman wearing a standard SHIELD uniform and a colourful hijab strides purposefully into the room. She’s carrying the same containment case that Andrew brought out of the AIM facility. Reynolds makes grabby hands in her direction.

“I’m flying out to Malibu later this morning,” she says, “but I’ll get SETH set up to analyze the cube while I’m away.”

Muldani nods, handing off the case before turning to Kevin. “Kevin,” she says.

“Thea,” he responds, more warmly than is usual for him. His expression indicates that Reynolds may have been correct when she’d said that he has a kink for SHIELD agents.

“Captain Josten,” says Muldani formally when she spies Neil. “It’s an honour to meet you.”

“Uhh…” says Neil, incredibly awkward in the face of admiration.

“My two aunties, Laila and Allie, were two of your Howling Commandos,” Muldani continues.

Neil’s face creases in confusion, before smoothing out. “You’re Amani’s daughter? Or did Laila get another sibling?”

“No, you're correct. Amani is my mother.”

Neil shakes his head ruefully. “She was born in ‘44. It was less than a year ago that Laila received word that her father had remarried and his new wife had given birth. And now that baby is old enough to have a daughter older than I am.”

“It must be strange,” says Muldani kindly.

“Very,” says Neil. “I was informed that Laila and Alejandra settled in France after the war?”

“Yes,” replies Muldani. “Everyone assumed that they were bachelorettes living together after losing their sweethearts. I used to love visiting them when growing up, but I didn’t get to see them that often, since I grew up here.” She smiles. “I just want to say thank you for everything you’ve been doing to increase public knowledge about them.”

Neil shifts uncomfortably. “They deserve to be remembered,” he says.

Muldani looks like she wants to say more but also that she recognizes Neil’s unease with the topic. She drops it and turns to Kevin. “I have to meet with an informant in Bed-Stuy and I’d appreciate some backup, if you’re not busy.”

Kevin looks torn.

“Playing Avengers Pong doesn’t count as being busy,” says Andrew.

Kevin deflates. “Alright,” he says, rising from the table. “Let me get my gear.”

Muldani follows him into the elevator and Neil turns to Andrew with a smirk. “You were just trying to get out of your promise to play, weren’t you?”

“I keep my promises.”

“So you’ll play two-person Pong with me?”

“Sure,” says Andrew. “I had an idea for that metal frisbee that I wanted to try out.”

“The metal…?” says Neil. “You mean the Captain America shield?”

“From the comics?”

“That’s the one. Allison and Nicky really wanted me to use it, but I pointed out that it was an impractical weapon for me, since it creates extra drag when I’m running and slows me down.” He shrugs. “Allison made it anyway. You can use it if you want. Apparently it’s made of the same kind of metal that your arms are, so it can deflect bullets.”

“It’ll just get in my way,” says Andrew.

“What do you want to use it for, anyway?”

“I want to see if I can knock you off your platform by rebounding the shield off the wall.”

“Sounds fun. We’ll try that after breakfast.”

“If I cared about you at all your lack of concern for your own safety would be worrying.”

Neil shrugs and pops a blueberry into his mouth. “It’s a good thing you hate me then, isn’t it?”

* * *

It turns out that Andrew _can_ knock Neil off the platform, but that he’s able to recover quickly enough that he doesn’t hit the ground. They play with the shield for a while, trying to get a feel for it as a weapon. It’s not the most practical tool, but it is fun to play with.

Suddenly, all the robots in the room whir to life. They’d been deactivated, waiting in place in case Andrew or Neil request SETH to send them into the fray, but now all of them - the little flying ones, the small rolling ones, and even the few that are humanoid - have inexplicably turned on and start heading towards Andrew and Neil.

“Are they supposed to do that?” asks Neil, sounding as uneasy as Andrew is feeling.

“Not unless someone asks,” says Andrew. “SETH’s probably just being a jerk.”

The robots open fire. Andrew dives out of the way, feeling a crackle of energy pass over him as he moves. All of the robots are armed with energy weapons, but safety protocols dictate that only low energy pulses can be emitted. That blast did not feel like it would have only given him a mild electric shock if it had made contact.

Andrew keeps moving, throwing his knives into the energy cells of the nearest robots, wishing that he had a gun. Neil had ducked behind the shield at the first barrage. He throws it now, crumpling several of the robots, before springing into action, avoiding the shots and disabling a few more of their attackers.

The shield clangs to the floor and Andrew picks it up, using it to smash the remaining robots into pieces. Neil skids to a stop in front of him, his eyes wide and confused. All the lights go off and an alarm begins to sound.

“You hurt?” Neil asks, as the yellow backup emergency lighting turns on.

Andrew does a quick assessment. He jammed his shoulder, but he’s otherwise uninjured. “Negative,” he replies.

“What the fuck happened?” says Neil, looking around at all the robot pieces littering the floor.

“Unknown,” says Andrew.

“SETH, report,” snaps Neil. There’s a static noise from the speakers, but SETH doesn’t reply. “Well that’s not good.” Neil turns to face Andrew again. Andrew waits for his orders.

“...you sure you’re alright?” says Neil, looking at Andrew, his forehead wrinkling in concern.

“Affirmative.”

“Then why are you standing at attention and speaking like a robot?”

“Coping mechanism,” he replies. The unexpected attack in a place he considers safe has made him revert to the speech patterns he had employed as Department X’s weapon.

“What should we do?”

Andrew gives himself a hard shake. He can’t just sit back and follow orders: he’s better equipped to deal with this problem than Neil is. “We have to contact Reynolds to see if this is her doing or if the tower’s under attack.” He heads to the locker room where he left his phone and backup weapons. His phone is already ringing when he reaches it.

“Minyard,” says Reynolds as soon as he answers. He puts it on speaker so that Neil can hear her as well. “What the hell is going on in my tower? Is that the alarm? I’m on the goddamn plane and I’ve received a whole bunch of security alerts, SETH isn’t responding, and you’re the first one to answer my call.”

“We don’t know what happened,” says Neil. “We were in the Pong room and all the robots attacked us.”

“They just _attacked_?” demands Reynolds.

“With safety protocols disengaged,” says Andrew.

“That is… fuck, this is bad,” says Reynolds. Andrew can hear some furious typing on her end of the call and then she calls out to someone to turn the plane around. “I’m coming back. I can’t connect to the tower mainframe; it looks like SETH is blocking my access.”

“SETH isn’t responding and the tower’s running on emergency power,” Neil tells Reynolds.

“The tower’s gone into lockdown,” says Andrew. He’d reviewed all possible emergency procedures before he’d moved into the tower.

“Only I can initiate complete lockdown,” she argues. “And I’d remember if I did.”

“SETH could, couldn’t he?” asks Neil.

“SETH _wouldn’t_ ,” says Reynolds. “I programmed in safeguards to prevent it.”

“Safeguards that obviously failed,” says Andrew.

“There’s a possibility that SETH’s reacting to an external attack.”

“What can we do?” asks Neil.

“You’ll have to… fuck, shit, _fuck_ , if SETH’s compromised, you’ll have to shut him down,” Reynolds grits out. “The AI core is on level-”

“I know where it is,” replies Andrew.

“All the security doors are sealed because of the lockdown,” continues Reynolds.

“I can get through them,” says Andrew.

Reynolds is silent, as she thinks. “Who else is even in the tower right now?”

“Reynolds Industries staff, I would presume,” says Neil. “Avengers-wise, Dan and Matt are in DC.”

“Renee and Kevin are out on assignment,” adds Andrew.

“So it’s you two and Aaron, who has probably turned into an indestructible rage monster that is in no way helpful in this situation?” says Reynolds. “Dammit, I can’t even use my suit while SETH is malfunctioning.”

“Okay,” says Neil, his face hardening into an expression that Andrew hasn’t seen before. “There are a couple weapons in the training room that we can use. Andrew, you take point since you know where you’re going. I’ll cover your six.”

“Remember that the elevators won’t be functioning,” says Reynolds. “Oh, and keep this call open, I might have to talk you through something.”

Andrew gives an inaudible sigh. He tends to avoid cardio and taking the stairs down more than fifty floors to the subterranean levels does not sound fun. At least they don’t have to climb the tower.

“What if I just smash everything in my path?” he asks.

“Please don’t,” Reynolds replies, sounding pained.

Andrew digs around in his locker for the guns he stashed in there earlier while Neil scavenges for weapons in the training room. He returns with several knives, a robot arm that still has a working energy weapon attached to it, and the fucking shield. He takes off his bandana and uses it to secure Andrew’s phone to his bicep.

They make it to the stairwell without incident. Andrew punches directly through the security door’s lock and the door swings open. Reynolds makes a little whimpering sound when Neil explains the origin of the crunching sound.

Progress down the stairs is fast: no one else is in the stairway since the lockdown means that all the occupants of the tower are trapped in place. The ongoing siren is muted here and the yellow emergency lights are flashing.

“Creepy,” mutters Neil, looking down.

Andrew lets Reynolds know when they reach the underground levels.

“The AI core is the best protected space in the tower,” she says. “There are automated defences that prevent unauthorized access.”

“What defences?” asks Neil.

“Turrets,” she replies.

Neil looks to the shield in his hands and then to Andrew. “Here. Throw this and try to take out as many turrets as possible. I’ll-”

“Stay behind me,” commands Andrew. He slams open the security door and throws the shield, following it up with several shots from his gun. By the time the shield bounces back to him, the turrets are all lying in pieces.

“That works,” says Neil. “Allison, there’s a force field in our way.”

Reynolds swears quite impressively. “I forgot about that. Nothing organic can get through it: only me in my suit.”

“Is there an override?” asks Andrew.

“There’s a button on the other side of the force field.”

Andrew holds one end of the shield and passes his arm through the force field carefully. He slams the shield into the override switch. The force field buzzes off and Andrew steps into the artificial coolness of the AI core room. Right away he can tell that something is wrong.

“Reynolds, AI power consumption and processing power are 250% baseline,” he reports.

“ _How_?” she demands. “No, never mind, you wouldn’t know. Can you attempt a soft reset?” She rattles off the instructions on how to do so.

“Negative, controls here are locked out,” he replies.

She swears, getting more and more agitated, and suggests other actions he can take. Finally, she says, “You’ll have to destroy the core.” She sounds resigned.

“What will that do to SETH?” asks Neil.

“I don’t know if there even _is_ a SETH anymore,” says Reynolds. “Something obviously messed with his programming. And whatever is in there right now has complete control over the tower and its security measures. You have to destroy the core to disrupt the connection.”

“Fine,” says Andrew, hefting the shield. It’s been much more useful than he had expected. “Stand back,” he tells Neil.

He swings the shield into the central core. His sight blurs and his ears pop and he finds himself lying flat on his back in the next room, Neil beside him, panting slightly.

“What happened?” Reynolds shrill voice demands over the phone.

“It exploded,” says Neil. “I dragged us out of the blast range.”

“Okay,” says Reynolds, and Andrew can hear her typing on a keyboard, “without SETH’s interference, I’m in the mainframe and I have control over the tower again.”

The yellow emergency lights switch back over to regular lighting, but the alarm isn't silenced. Instead, it's joined by announcements, telling the tower occupants to evacuate.

“What are you doing?” asks Neil.

“We don’t know what SETH’s attackers did,” says Reynolds shortly. “There are a lot of security measures in the tower that are designed to incapacitate intruders, but can be used against those who work there. I need to check them before we can know if it’s safe to be in the tower.”

Andrew’s phone buzzes on his arm, indicating an incoming text message. It’s from Wymack, directing him and Neil and Aaron to report in at the Manhattan SHIELD headquarters.

“Do you have a location for Aaron?” Andrew asks Reynolds.

“Just a second,” she mutters, attention clearly elsewhere. “Where is…? Oh, he’s up in his lab. He’s post-Hulk.”

“We’ll go grab him and then make our way to SHIELD,” he tells her.

“Uh huh, see you later,” she replies. “Oh, and the elevators are still not functional,” she says quickly as she ends the call.

He and Neil pick themselves up off the floor and end up back in the stairwell, this time looking up. There’s a lot of noise due to all the evacuating people.

“Awesome,” mutters Andrew, and starts trudging up the stairs.

* * *

They find Aaron in his lab, naked, covered in a blanket and asleep in Katelyn’s lap. She explains that the alarms had made him turn into the Hulk. Several of the laboratory robots had started malfunctioning and he’d taken care of them. Then, she’d talked to him until he’d calmed down enough to fall asleep and turn back into Aaron.

Andrew shakes him awake and he expresses alarm and shame that Katelyn had seen his transformation. She just scoffs at his worry, telling him that she’s never been scared of him and she wasn’t about to start now.

It takes them longer to get to SHIELD headquarters than expected, since Aaron insists that they escort Katelyn to her apartment first. Kevin is waiting for them anxiously when they arrive, fidgeting in agitation and reaching out to touch them before he thinks better of it. Boyd and Wilds arrive not long afterwards, having caught a ride on a quinjet from DC. Both of them are relieved to see Neil, checking him for nonexistent injuries when they hear what exactly occurred.

Renee hasn’t been recalled from her mission, so the last one to show up is Reynolds. She looks limp and wrung out; Andrew’s never seen her look this affected by anything.

“SETH’s gone,” she says. “His program isn’t anywhere that I could find. I think it erased him.”

“It?” asks Boyd, face screwed up in worry and confusion.

In response, Reynolds brings up a video on the conference room screen. It is surveillance video of one of the labs in Avengers Tower. The blue cube that they had liberated from the AIM facility is sitting on a scanner when it suddenly begins to glow a purple-red colour. The tower lights flick off shortly after that, and the cube begins glowing orange as the emergency lighting kicks in.

One of Reynolds’ spare suits clanks into the room, its face mask open so that they can see that no one is occupying it. It picks up the cube off the scanner, places it securely in the helmet of the suit, and then flies away. It flies directly through the wall, punching a hole through the side of the building.

Wilds looks up at Reynolds gravely. “One of your suits stole the cube?”

“The cube attacked SETH while he was scanning it,” says Reynolds, “and it took control of him and the tower and my suits.”

“Where did it go?” asks Wilds. “We can’t have a rogue Iron Man suit flying around.”

“All my suits have trackers,” says Reynolds. “This one is in South Africa.” A satellite image appears, showing a derelict shipyard on the west coast of the country.

“So… does that look like a trap to anyone else?” asks Boyd.

“An abandoned, beached tanker?” responds Reynolds sarcastically. “Noooooooo. That’s totally not suspicious at all.”

Wilds grimaces. “We don’t really have much choice. We need it back. Allison, without SETH can you even use your armour?”

“I have a backup VI that I can use to run the suit,” Reynolds responds. “It’s not as good as SETH, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Alright, everyone on the quinjet in ten,” says Wilds. “We’ll stop at the tower to suit up, and then head to Africa.”

* * *

The inside of the abandoned tanker is dank and dark and definitely feels like a trap. There’s a silence that feels pregnant, like someone’s breath is being held. The hair on the back of Andrew’s neck is standing up: he feels watched.

“It feels like someone’s here,” says Neil in a near whisper over the comms, “but I can’t see any sign of them.”

“I concur,” agrees Renee. She had met them once they touched down, coming directly from her assignment. She looks tired. It worries Andrew: if she’s showing it then she must be exhausted.

“What the-” says Neil’s voice, then cuts out suddenly.

“Cap?” says Boyd tentatively. “Neil?”

“Cap, respond,” orders Wilds when there’s no response from Neil. “Has anyone got eyes on him?”

“Negative,” says Renee. “But he wasn’t far from me. I’ll check it out.”

“Carefully,” stresses Wilds.

Andrew heads in the same general direction.

“I found the suit,” says Reynolds. She, Boyd, and Kevin are all on the upper levels of the tanker. “Or what’s left of it. The cube's not here.”

“The suit was destroyed?” asks Kevin.

“Looks like it self-destructed,” says Reynolds.

“They can do that?” asks Boyd.

“SETH can self-destruct them if they’re taken out of my possession,” replies Reynolds. “Maybe the cube didn’t destroy him completely?”

“Can you get any information from the suit?” asks Wilds.

“Maybe,” says Reynolds. “I’ll collect what I can and bring it back.”

“Good,” says Wilds. “Keep it secluded so if the cube is still in control it can’t access our systems again.” She pauses. “Progress, Widow?”

There’s no answer.

“Widow, respond.”

“Fuck,” swears Boyd. “Does anyone see anything? Are we up against the Predator?”

Andrew hears a footfall behind him and sees red mist in his peripheral vision. He turns towards the sound and finds himself in the past.

He’s in the training room, but not the training room at Avengers Tower. No, this is the training room where _they_ made him into a weapon.

 _This is not real_ , he thinks forcefully, and the next time he blinks he’s back on the derelict tanker. There’s a tall, dark-skinned man in front of him, with red mist hovering around his outstretched hands.

His eyes open wide in surprise. “That should have worked,” he says, his voice lightly accented.

“I’ve had much scarier people fucking with my brain,” says Andrew, punching the man. “You’ll have to do better than that.” The man slumps, unconscious. “I’ve found our Predator,” says Andrew. “He’s enhanced. Some kind of mind control.” Andrew grabs the man’s wrist and starts dragging him along the floor as he searches for Neil and Renee.

“Don’t let him anywhere near the Hulk,” says Wilds. “That would be disastrous. Falcon, Hawkeye, get down there and help the Soldier.”

Boyd lands near him just as he comes across Neil’s unconscious body. He doesn’t appear injured, but who knows what’s been done to his mind. Boyd gingerly picks him up and the two of them look around for Renee.

Kevin joins them in time to lift Renee into his arms. He looks down at their unconscious prisoner and gasps. “Jean?” he stutters.

“You know him?” Boyd asks, heading towards their egress point.

“We… grew up together,” says Kevin. “He was another one of Tetsuji’s recruits.”

“What did he do to Neil and Renee?” asks Boyd. “Are they going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” replies Kevin. “He didn’t have powers when I knew him.”

“Well,” says Andrew, hoisting the man’s dead weight over his shoulders, not bothering to be gentle. “We’ll ask him.”

“He’s not going to be willing to tell us,” says Kevin fretfully.

Andrew glances at Neil’s and Renee’s small, helpless forms. He grits his teeth. “Then I will make him.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *whispers* it's my birthday!
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: implied/referenced suicide, dissociation, dehumanization and being in the power of a past abuser.

The tower is still out of commission so they head to a SHIELD facility in upstate New York. Reynolds and Aaron both split off and head back to the city; Reynolds needs to make repairs to the tower and Aaron has to organize his team and start searching for the cube. One of the scientists who works with Aaron and Katelyn is a physicist that specializes in Gamma radiation.

The prisoner, along with Renee and Neil, had been sedated before leaving South Africa in a quinjet. If Renee and Neil were compromised they didn’t want to deal with them on a small aircraft.

When they land at the facility, they’re met by SHIELD agents Muldani and Knox. The two of them and the rest of Knox’s STRIKE team were sent ahead by Wymack to ready the building for the Avengers.

Wilds takes immediate control. “Take him to a holding cell,” she tells Knox, indicating their prisoner. Both Kevin and Andrew move to follow. “Not you, Minyard,” she commands. “Keep him behind one-way mirrors,” she continues to Knox, “and make sure there’s at least three guards at all times.”

“I’m the only one we know can resist his power,” argues Andrew.

“You’re also the most dangerous if he’s able to overpower you,” says Wilds shortly. Andrew can tell that she’s thinking of the damage that a mind-controlled Winter Soldier has unleashed upon SHIELD in the past.

“I have questions for him.”

“Agent Thirteen and I are both excellent interrogators,” says Wilds, gesturing to Muldani. “If we’re unsuccessful than perhaps you’ll have a chance. In the meantime, you’ll be needed if Neil or Renee needs to be restrained. We don’t know what he’s done to their minds.”

“Fine,” grumbles Andrew, grudgingly admitting that she’s correct.

“Take them to medical,” Wilds says.

“No,” says Andrew. “Both of them have undergone unwanted medical experimentation and procedures before. Waking up there would be stressful.” He’s personally stipulated that he’s never to be taken to medical when unconscious except if he would actually die otherwise. He has no interest of ever waking up in a hospital bed attached to monitors ever again.

Wilds gazes at him for longer than seems warranted. “You’re right,” she says. “I didn’t think about that. Get them to quarters. The sedatives should wear off soon.”

Andrew nods and turns to Boyd. “We should separate them,” he says. “If they are hostile, we don’t want them to team up.”

“I’ll take Neil,” offers Boyd. “I’ve talked him down from nightmares before.”

Andrew wonders a little at that - it must have taken place during Neil’s first weeks in this century, before he moved into the tower. He carefully picks Renee up, not touching her more than necessary, and takes her into the facility. One of the STRIKE team members guides him to a room that has a twin bed, a bedside table and not much else. He gently lays Renee on the bed and backs off, sitting in a ready crouch across the room. He’s careful not to block the path to the door so that she doesn’t feel trapped, but he’s close enough to stop her if she’s hostile.

He waits, trying to emulate the blank patience he is usually able to harness, but his thoughts churn. The glimpse of his past that Moreau forced on him has unsettled his mind. Kevin had given them a rundown on their prisoner on their way back: Jean Moreau, 34 years of age, born in Haiti, immigrated to West Virginia as a child, was recruited by Tetsuji around the same time that Kevin was. Evidently he’d acquired some kind of mind manipulation in the last few years, possibly from the cube. Andrew wonders what memories he’d shown Neil. He can guess what Renee had seen; their pasts are similar enough.

Andrew can tell the exact moment that she wakes. She doesn’t move or start, but her breathing changes rhythm for a heartbeat before resuming a passable imitation of the deep breaths of sleep. She’s assessing her surroundings and Andrew begins to speak in a low, soothing tone before she can explode into motion.

“You’re safe,” he says, even knowing that she won’t believe him until she can check for herself. He never believes it when anyone says it to him. “You’re in living quarters in a SHIELD facility. I am not going to harm you.”

Renee opens her eyes. “Andrei,” she says, slipping into Russian. “What happened?”

“What do you remember?” he asks in the same language.

“I was… looking for Neil?” she says hesitantly. “Yes, that’s right. We lost contact with him in the tanker. I was uneasy; it felt like I was under observation. Then I was somewhere else. I was young again, helpless.”

“You’ve never been helpless,” Andrew tells her.

“Don’t tell me pretty lies,” she snaps. “We both know I’ve often been helpless.”

He regards her placidly and she sighs, rubbing her hand over her eyes. “How did this happen?”

“There was an enhanced individual,” he explains. “We don’t know his exact powers. He attacked me as he did you, but I was able to resist and subdue him.”

“I could tell it was a memory, that it wasn’t real, but I couldn’t find my way out.” She sounds frustrated.

“You were tired,” he says. “And I have a lot more experience with people fucking with my mind.”

“I don’t need your excuses,” she replies.

“No,” he agrees. He watches her, considering. She’s a lot more unsettled than he’s ever seen her. “Do you want to punch things?”

She balls her hands into fists. “I do,” she admits.

He leads her down to the facility’s training room. They’re still in their mission gear, so they don’t need to change, but he does make her tape up her hands. They discard all their weapons, since what she needs is a good old fashioned brawl.

Renee attacks viciously. She’s fast and brutal, like she always is, but there’s an underlying current of rage that is uncharacteristic. It makes her sloppy. Andrew is staying mostly on the defensive - her relentless attacks give him little choice - but he sees breaks in her form that he could take advantage of. He’s pretty certain he could beat her, but that’s not the purpose of this fight. She’s been made to feel small and defenseless so he’s going to let her beat the shit out of him so that she can prove to herself that she isn’t. The bruises won’t last long, anyway.

They fight for what seems like hours, until they’re both dripping with sweat and panting hard, slumping exhaustedly down onto the mats. Andrew’s right shoulder is aching, the one he jammed… yesterday? Was it only yesterday that he and Neil were playing Pong when the robots attacked? He stretches it absently while watching Renee catch her breath. She must have noticed that he was slightly injured since she kept attacking his weakened side.

“Feeling better?” he asks.

She chuckles mirthlessly. “Yes, thank you,” she says politely. “My anger is under control so I won’t mistakenly take it out on someone blameless.”

“You don’t know who is to blame,” he points out.

“No,” she agrees, “but I highly doubt that it is Jean Moreau, who is probably just as much of a victim as Kevin was. Besides, you and I both know that the front-line workers are rarely the masterminds.” She’s thoughtfully quiet before speaking again, “Something’s in the works.”

“What have you been up to lately?” he asks. He hasn’t seen her much in the past month or so; she’s been busy with SHIELD.

“Tracking Hydra, mostly,” she replies. “Department X seems to have re-branded themselves completely. Apparently they’re finding it easier to recruit in the current political climate by becoming literal Nazis.”

“Are they causing trouble?”

“No more than usual,” she shrugs, and then smiles her shark smile. “They’re still in disarray from what I’ve done to them.”

“Good,” says Andrew. “What’s troubling you, then?”

Her smile disappears. “Something in the shadows,” she says. “I haven’t seen any evidence that another evil organization exists, but there are empty spaces where I think one is hiding.”

Andrew hums. “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” he says.

“Exactly,” she agrees. “No alerts going off when they should be. For instance, AIM got the cube we’re currently tracking from somewhere. They didn’t find it, it was given to them, but there’s nothing to indicate who. All the major organizations that I keep track of have similar voids, even SHIELD.”

“How can something that big be so well hidden?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “It’s worrying.”

“Maybe Moreau has had some dealings with them,” he suggests. “He has a connection to the cube.”

“I think I’ll ask,” she says, reaching out to grab his arm to lever herself to her feet. She wrinkles her nose. “Shower, first,” she decides.

* * *

Kevin, Wilds, and Knox are all watching through the one-way glass as Muldani speaks with Moreau when Renee and Andrew arrive. Wilds shoots Andrew an annoyed glare, but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge him.

“How are you feeling?” she asks Renee.

“Better, thank you,” says Renee. “What have you learned?”

“Very little,” says Wilds dryly, and taps twice on the glass. Muldani stands and leaves Moreau sitting at the interrogation table, joining them in the observation room.

“He’s scared,” Kevin defends.

Muldani nods in agreement. “He’s being very cryptic, but I think that Tetsuji has gotten Ten Rings involved in something bigger than their usual weapons smuggling.”

Kevin grimaces at the reference to the terrorist organization he had been part of. “It did sound like he was implying that Ten Rings has started brokering trades in artifacts like that cube.”

“As an intermediary between AIM and whomever had it before?” asks Renee. She peers into the interrogation room. “I’d like to speak with him.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asks Wilds.

“With you five standing guard, I’m sure neither of us will get hurt,” says Renee enigmatically, and breezes into Moreau’s room. Moreau reacts minutely to her presence, but she just primly takes a seat at the table.

“I’m Renee Walker, if you didn’t know,” she says in French. “Do you need anything? Water? Food?”

Moreau crosses his arms tightly across his chest, and answers in the same language, “So you are the good cop then?”

“Oh, no,” says Renee, laying her hands flat on the table. “Jean, I am not a good person at all.”

Moreau breaks eye contact first; he swallows heavily and doesn’t answer.

Renee sits back in her chair. “I’m curious about your power,” she says. “Could you see the memory that you induced?” He still doesn’t answer her, so she continues, “It was cleverly done. The changes you made were very effective at trapping me in my own mind.” She cocks her head. “But the Soldier was able to resist. I’d imagine that you were surprised about that.”

“His mind is not his own,” replies Moreau. “It should have been easy.”

“It is his own now. As is mine, as is Kevin’s.”

Moreau shakes his head. “You’re foolish if you think that you are free. We are all of us owned.”

“And you were trying to return him to his owners?”

“I work for an organization that buys and sells weapons. A weapon as formidable as the Winter Soldier is always valuable to a weapons dealer.”

“He is not a weapon,” says Renee, a hint of warning in her voice.

“He can pretend to be a person for as long as he likes,” says Moreau, “it won’t stop him from being what he was made to be. They will claim him sooner or later.”

“Hydra will,” guesses Renee.

“An organization that is scrambling in the dirt for scraps? No. You are in much more danger than that.”

“We are all of us dangerous,” she reminds him.

“We will all be dead when they are finished,” he warns.

“Do you have a name to go along with your threats?” she says. “I like to know my enemies.”

“As do we all,” says Moreau. He pauses, considering. “I’ve only heard whispers, you understand. Riddles in the dark.”

“And what do they say?”

“They are very careful,” he says. “But I’ve heard a name.” He looks around warily and switches to speaking in Japanese. “Ravens,” he whispers.

* * *

Andrew leaves Renee to her attempts to tease more information out of Moreau and goes looking for Neil. He finds him in the cafeteria with Boyd, an untouched tray of food in front of him as he stares blankly into the middle distance. Boyd is watching him, clearly worried. He’s projecting his desire to swaddle Neil in fourteen blankets and cuddle him until he stops looking so broken. Andrew is surprised by his own need to do the same.

He takes a seat across the table from Neil and knocks his knuckles against his lunch tray, the clang of metal on metal making Neil blink and look at him.

“Andrew,” he says, sounding mostly confused. Then he blinks a couple more times, his vision sharpening. “What time is it?” he asks, vaguely panicked. “Is it…?”

“It’s only been about twenty minutes since you last asked,” says Boyd soothingly. “Please eat something.”

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “You doing okay?”

“I’m fine,” replies Neil.

“He’s dissociating,” corrects Boyd.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Neil repeats sharply.

Boyd shrugs helplessly, but drops it. “How’s Renee?” he asks.

“Better than he is,” says Andrew, jerking a thumb in Neil’s direction. “She’s speaking with Moreau.”

“She learn anything?”

Andrew looks at Neil, assessing, before deciding that hiding things from him wouldn’t be advisable. “Apparently the next big evil organization kicking up trouble is called the Ravens.” He says the word in Japanese, just as Moreau had done, and watches as Neil freezes before expelling a humourless laugh that sounds like it hurt on the way out.

“Well, why not?” he says, a horrible smile gracing his face. “Hydra’s already here, after all. Seventy years later and Hydra and the Ravens are making trouble, white supremacists are in power, and immigrants are to blame for society’s ills. The only changes are that technology is better and everybody I love is dead.” Boyd makes a wounded sound, but Neil ignores him and continues, “It makes sense, I guess. I died to destroy the Ravens, but since I failed at dying it follows that I failed to eradicate them. If I’m really lucky, maybe I’ll get another chance to stop them. Hopefully I can get the dying part right this time.”

“Neil,” says Boyd, at a loss.

“It’s fine,” says Neil dismissively. “I’ve always known that I was not important, that my life was worth nothing. It just hurts to have it confirmed.”

“You’re not nothing,” says Boyd savagely. “Your life has meaning and you have people who value and love you.”

“I will always have and be nothing,” says Neil, looking up and making eye contact with Andrew. Andrew doesn’t know what expression he’s making, but Neil relaxes slightly. He identifies with what Neil is saying and for the first time in a long time he feels completely understood by someone who is not Renee. They are weapons, both of them, trying to escape their pasts which won’t relinquish their holds.

* * *

Reynolds shows up late the next day. She looks ready for a photo shoot, except for a slight wildness in her eyes and trembling in her hands stemming from the fact that she is mainlining caffeine. Andrew doubts that she’s slept more than twenty minutes since they last saw her.

“Tower’s up and running again,” she says. “I’ve updated security so that if we have to shut down the new AI the tower can still function.”

“The new AI?” Wilds asks.

“An AI is needed to run both my suits and my security,” defends Reynolds. “SETH wasn’t the only AI I designed, you know.”

“What’s the new one called?” asks Kevin.

“I picked the Backup Robotic Intelligence of Absolute Necessity,” says Reynolds. “You can tell by his name, _Dan_ , that we can’t do without him. Say hi to everyone, BRIAN.”

“Hello Avengers,” says a voice from Reynolds’ tablet. “I have taken the initiative to secure your living quarters. Robots have made surveys and I have found no evidence of infiltration while the tower was without oversight.” The voice is male, but that’s where the similarities to SETH end. The new AI speaks softer, with a Scottish lilt to its words.

“We can go home?” asks Boyd, sounding relieved. He’s still hovering around Neil, oozing worry.

Reynold’s gaze bounces between Boyd and Neil. “What’s wrong with him?” she asks, pointing at Neil with her characteristic lack of tact.

“Matt thinks that the witch broke my brain,” says Neil, still sounding incredibly detached.

“The witch?” asks Renee.

“He had red magic coming out of his hands and can control minds,” says Neil dryly. “What would you call him?”

“Enhanced?” suggests Kevin.

“Anyway, I’m fine,” says Neil, brushing off everyone’s concern. “Are we going back to the tower?”

“We’re going to bring Moreau with us to detain him there,” warns Wilds. “It’s our most secure location. Is that going to be alright with you, Neil?”

Neil shrugs. “He’ll be locked up, and it’s not like he can make me worse at this point.”

“Don't be stupid,” says Andrew. “Things can always get worse.”

* * *

Andrew is glad to be back in his own space. He checks his apartment closely, making sure that nothing has breached the perimeter or set off his security measures. Then he spends the next several hours doing a survey and perimeter check of the tower itself, making sure to examine the repaired AI core. Once that’s complete, he feels safe enough that he’s able to fall deeply asleep, which is much more restful than the short dozes he was able to manage at the facility upstate.

He wakes up earlier than normal, since his routine is so disrupted, and decides to do yoga before going in search of breakfast. Renee had sought him out for several more sparring sessions in the last few days, so he is in dire need of stretching and relaxation. He’s feeling limber and calm by the time he showers and heads up to the common floor.

Annoyingly, Kevin isn’t around and Neil is gazing off into space while Boyd tries to force some food into him, so Andrew has to make his own breakfast. He settles for making oatmeal and throwing some protein powder and fruit into it. He stirs his food and watches Neil, getting increasingly worried about his mental state.

“Did you call his therapist?” he asks Boyd. He knows that Neil’s not big on therapy in general, but having a therapist is mandatory for all Avengers.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure how helpful she was; I don’t think he trusts her,” says Boyd.

“Is he getting worse?” says Andrew, noting how Neil hasn’t yet objected to them speaking about him as if he isn’t present.

“I don’t think he’s sleeping,” says Boyd, yawning.

Andrew eats his breakfast and tries to pretend that Neil’s obvious distress isn’t upsetting in the slightest.

Boyd’s phone chimes and he groans in annoyance when he reads the message. “Fuck, Wymack’s calling me in,” he says. “He’s keeping Jean’s intel about the Ravens contained since Renee thinks they may have spies within SHIELD, but that means more work for those of us he trusts. Can you keep an eye on Neil today? He gets lost in his head a lot, can’t keep track of time.”

“‘m not an infant,” mutters Neil, in his first show of awareness since Andrew entered the dining area.

“Eat your food or I’m going to feed it to you while pretending your spoon’s an airplane,” warns Boyd.

Neil stares at him uncomprehendingly.

“It’s a common parenting tactic for when babies or toddlers won’t eat,” explains Andrew.

Neil makes a grumpy face that rivals a two year old’s, but he does start eating.

Andrew waves Boyd and his anxiety away and studies Neil.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” he asks when Neil’s mostly finished his breakfast. “Nightmares?”

“No,” says Neil petulantly.

“You’re going to get benched and sent for psych evals,” Andrew tells him. “You’re a liability in the field in your current condition.”

Neil pouts some more, but Andrew waits him out.

“I don’t know when I’m going to wake up,” he admits quietly.

“You’ll wake up several hours from now,” says Andrew, not understanding the issue.

“What if it’s years from now?” Neil’s voice is very small.

“That’s unlikely,” says Andrew.

“Happened to me once.”

“In extenuating circumstances,” Andrew points out, although he thinks he’s figured out what Moreau showed Neil.

“I can’t do it again,” says Neil desperately. “I already lost everything and had to start over. I can’t do it again, now that I’m starting to find my place here.”

“Neil, nothing’s going to happen if you sleep. You’re very tired and it’s making you irrational.” He looks at Neil’s miserable face for a couple beats before he makes up his mind. “Come on,” he says, rising from the table and heading to the elevator. Neil follows slowly, a little unsteady on his feet. Andrew directs BRIAN to take them to his floor, which makes Neil look at him in astonishment.

“You don’t have to do this,” says Neil. “I know you don’t like people in your apartment; you don’t have to invite me in just because I’m pathetic and Matt asked you to babysit.”

“It’s been years since I’ve done anything unwillingly and I’m not about to change that for you.”

Neil nods and wordlessly trails him into his apartment when the elevator stops. Andrew fetches one of his microfleece blankets from the closet and drapes it around Neil.

He points at the couch. “Lie down,” he says. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to sleep-” he raises his voice to drown out Neil’s sound of protest “-and I’m going to sit in that chair and keep guard. I have verified the security of my apartment. If anyone tries to get to you or to take you to the future I’ll kill them. I’ll be here when you wake up, and it will still be 2018.”

Neil still appears unconvinced, so Andrew takes a seat and waits. Slowly, Neil wraps himself more securely in the blanket and sinks onto the couch. When Andrew looks up, Neil’s watching him with an inscrutable expression.

“Close your eyes,” he says.

“But-”

“Neil,” Andrew cuts him off. “Do you trust me?”

Neil blinks heavily a couple times. “Yes,” he says, sounding a little surprised. “Abram.”

“What?”

“‘s my real name,” he says drowsily, closing his eyes. Andrew can tell from his breathing that he’s already falling asleep.

“Abram,” Andrew repeats softly. “Sleep now.”

* * *

Neil sleeps for seventeen hours. Andrew doesn’t sit and watch him like a guard dog the entire time - he takes breaks for food and to use the washroom, he texts with Bee, he reads two novels, and watches a video about fainting goats that Nicky sends him. It’s strange to have someone else in his space, although not unpleasant. He’s grown used to Neil’s company over the last few months and recent events have shown that Neil’s gotten farther under his skin than he’d thought.

Neil’s sheepish when he wakes up, trying to laugh off his fear of sleeping.

“Someone fucked with your mind; it’s understandable that it affected you,” says Andrew.

Neil laughs a little self-deprecatingly. “It was another seventy years in the future and there _still_ weren’t any flying cars,” he says. “I should have known it wasn’t real.”

Andrew doesn’t agree or disagree. He gets Neil to make them some food, and then accompanies him down to the gym so that Neil can sprint away from his problems. Renee shows up to spar, despite the fact that it is 3am.

About a week later BRIAN calls the Avengers into a briefing. Andrew’s expecting to learn more about the Ravens, but it turns out Aaron’s made progress in locating the cube. He gives a long, technically detailed explanation about his team’s search methods - which only Reynolds seems to follow at all - until Wilds interrupts him to ask point blank where the cube is.

Aaron pulls up a satellite surveillance image of a building surrounded by jungle. “It’s in Borneo,” he says.

“Borneo?” asks Neil, looking up in interest. “Wait, can you zoom out?” As the base gets smaller and the surrounding terrain can be seen, Neil expels a shuddering breath. “That used to be a Ravens’ facility,” he says. “I blew it up in ‘44.”

“Well evidently someone rebuilt it,” says Reynolds.

“Not necessarily the Ravens,” adds Renee. “From what I can tell the Ravens prefer to be out of the spotlight, hiding in the shadows of other organizations. This looks big and showy: it’s probably Hydra or AIM.”

“I agree,” says Wilds. “The bad news is that they’ve employed something that’s able to block our scanners and we don’t have any intel about the inside of the base. All we know is what’s seen in these satellite photos, so we know of some external defenses and guard patterns.”

“And we’re sure the cube is there?” asks Kevin.

“The Gamma radiation signature matches the one we picked up in Croatia,” nods Aaron.

“Soooo… trap?” says Boyd. “Again?”

Wilds tilts her hand back and forth. “Maybe. It’s definitely a working facility so being a trap can’t be its only function.”

“It was Ten Rings that set the trap in South Africa,” says Renee. “Jean says that the goal was to recover the cube so that they could sell it for the second time.”

“Did he end up telling you how that cube managed to give him witch powers?” asks Reynolds.

“He either doesn’t know or isn’t willing to say exactly how it works,” responds Renee. “He says he was volunteered by Tetsuji to be a subject so that the sellers could demonstrate the cube’s powers. He remembers a blue flash and then waking up with a pounding headache.”

“Convenient,” mutters Neil.

“The op to recover the cube is going to require several stages,” says Wilds. “First surveillance, then infiltration, then recovery.” She nods at them as she names them, “Widow, Soldier, Cap, you three are on infiltration: map the inside of the facility and try to locate the cube, but do not engage. Hawkeye, Falcon, you two make like the birds you’re named for and take to the trees for surveillance. Hulk, Iron Man, you stay back with me as technology support and backup. You’re not really cut out for covert operations.”

“Ugh,” says Neil. “Borneo.”

“It looks beautiful,” argues Boyd.

Neil levels him with a look. “When I was there it was hot and humid and full of insects and death. I could happily go my entire life without returning to any of the islands in the South Pacific. Surely you must all have places you never want to see again?”

“Afghanistan,” says Boyd, nodding.

“Iraq,” adds Reynolds.

“Siberia,” says Andrew, thinking of the bleak coldness of the base where he was trained.

“New Jersey,” says Kevin, shuddering.

* * *

It turns out Neil is right, the jungle is awful. Andrew has a deep loathing for cold temperatures, but that doesn’t means he likes hot ones. He really just prefers to be in a climate controlled environment, where he’s able to decide what the temperature and humidity should be.

He watches the outside of the facility for several hours, feeling uneasy the entire time. It’s not the same feeling that he experienced in South Africa - the knowledge that someone was watching him - it’s general anxiety without an obvious origin. His gut instinct is telling him that something is wrong, but since he can’t pinpoint what’s pinging his internal alarms he’s left feeling frustrated.

He, Renee, and Neil steal three guard uniforms and sneak into the facility, splitting up. He vehemently doesn’t want to separate from them, but he chalks that up to the fact that the last time they were apart on a mission the two of them ended up incapacitated.

Because of the nature of the mission, there is very little comm banter, which again adds to the feelings of wrongness. Kevin and Boyd check in with updates about the guard patrols, and Reynolds relays information about the base’s communications. They’d patched her in to one of the guards’ stolen radios. Renee and Neil give infrequent, hushed progress updates.

“I’m on the east side of the building,” says Neil. “Checking out the labs now.”

“Heading to sublevel one,” says Andrew. He thinks this may be a detention area. The walls and doors are all reinforced: he doesn’t think that even he could break down these doors, which isn’t helping his unease. He skirts the cameras and heads towards the only open door at the far end of the hall. A cursory look shows the room to be empty except for several computer terminals which may prove useful if he can grant access to Reynolds, so he cautiously makes his way inside.

“What the fuck-” says Neil loudly over the comms, just as the door slams shut behind Andrew, blocking the comm signal. He starts to turn, but someone says a word.

His mind fuzzes and he freezes completely. He doesn’t know what word was spoken, but it is like a fish hook: reaching inside of him and yanking him into compliance. Another word is spoken and he holsters his weapon and stands at attention. He knows what’s happening now. Someone is reciting his trigger words, each one trapping him under their control until the last one will take his mind away from him completely. He tries to fight it, but it’s no use. The methods used to implant these controls were cruel and inhumane and very, very effective. He can feel himself panicking, but outwardly he just stands as still as a statue.

The words suddenly stop, the last one of the series left unsaid, and Drake Spear steps into his sightline. “Hello, Soldat,” he says with a leer. “You’ve been busy lately, haven’t you?”

Everything in Andrew recoils from him, his skin crawling, but he still can’t move.

Spear caresses his face and then hits him. “Have you forgotten what you are? Who you belong to? I’m going to have to remind you.” He shakes his head in disappointment. “Pretending to be a person? Making friends? You know better than that.” He smiles. “I am going to have you kill them. One more word from me, and you won’t even care. I just wanted to let you know what I’m going to do to you while you are still able to fear me.” He plucks Andrew’s ear piece out and crushes it between his fingers and then starts to detail everything that he’s planning on doing to Andrew and everything he’s going to make Andrew do.

There’s a thump on the reinforced door behind them and Spear chuckles. “They can try, but they can’t get to you. Instead, when that door opens, you’re going to meet them with your guns blazing. Nothing they can do can-”

He’s cut off by the horrible screeching sound of twisting metal and loud thumps as something crashes into the room. He’s still looking over Andrew’s shoulder with wide eyes when a blur of colour hits him, hard, leaving a knife sticking out of his carotid artery. He gags on blood, reaching up to try to cover the wound, before falling out of Andrew’s sight.

Neil holds on to the knife as Spear falls, turning towards Andrew in concern. “Andrew?” he says, before getting distracted by something happening over by the door. He takes off briskly. “Aaron!” he shouts. “Aaron! Hulk! Don’t come in here, you’ll hurt Andrew. Go smash those other doors.”

Andrew hears heavy footsteps retreating and then the sounds of crunching metal coming from farther down the hallway.

“Renee, I need you,” says Neil, returning to stand in front of Andrew while wiping the blood off his knife on his pants. His eyes are unfocused, listening. “Well, hurry it up. Andrew’s catatonic and vulnerable and I have no idea what this asswipe did to him.” He looks up at Andrew and smiles comfortingly; Andrew feels relief rush through him.

“I don’t know if you can hear me at all, so I’m just going to talk,” says Neil, and proceeds to explain what’s going on. He found a weird robot in a lab, he says. Aaron and Reynolds were called in when they lost contact with Andrew and the robot started attacking the base’s personnel. He interrupts his story several times to make comments about what the others are saying over the comms and to let Andrew know Renee’s ETA.

Andrew find himself feeling unexpectedly calm. His body has betrayed him, he’s unable to move in the middle of a fight, anyone could show up and he can’t defend himself. He should be worried. But Neil is right in front of him, Aaron is out in the hallway, Renee is on her way, and the rest of his team are nearby. He knows that he is safe, that they will ensure that nothing bad happens to him.

“Hey,” says Neil, then, to Andrew, “Renee’s here.”

She steps into his sightline and gives him a once over.

“What’s wrong with him?” asks Neil.

Renee wrinkles her brow. “It looks like he was partially triggered.”

“Partially?”

“If he were fully triggered, he would be killing us,” she says, and then starts scanning the room. She makes a disgusted sound when she sees Spear’s body and forcefully kicks him as she passes by, heading back towards the mangled doorway.

“Can you fix it?” asks Neil.

“Sure,” she replies lightly. “He just needs a cognitive recalibration.”

“Cognitive recalibration?”

“Uh huh,” she says, stepping back where Andrew can see her, now carrying a twisted bit of metal pole. “Sorry, Andrew,” she says with a grimace, and swings.

He can’t react, can’t move away or block it. The metal makes a dull crack when it connects with his skull, and he’s swallowed up by darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why writing this fic is like pulling teeth :(  
> Anyway, one more chapter and an epilogue to go!


	5. Chapter 5

Andrew wakes slowly. His head aches, the pain radiating down his neck. He doesn’t remember falling asleep and he’s not in his closet; taken together with his pain, he probably got injured on a mission. He fights through his brain fog, trying to remember what happened.

It hits him suddenly, the base in Borneo, Spear saying his trigger words, Renee clubbing him with a metal pole - no wonder his head hurts, _fuck, Renee_. He listens intently, trying to figure out where he is. There aren’t any telltale noises of a hospital, and no one would enter his apartment without his permission, so he must be somewhere else. Listening closely he can hear the slight rustling that indicates he’s not alone: breathing and infrequent throat clearing, shuffling papers, the clink of ceramic being placed on a glass tabletop. It’s all very familiar, but he can’t quite place it. He slowly blinks open his eyes.

He shuts them again almost instantly, the overhead light feeling like an ice pick to the brain, but he’s seen enough to know where he is.

“Bright,” he rasps.

He hears the creak of a chair and footsteps heading away from him.

“I’ve dimmed the lights,” says Bee. “How are you feeling, Andrew?”

“Sore,” he answers, even though he knows she isn’t asking after his physical well-being. He hears her settle back in her chair, and he opens his eyes a fraction, widening them a little when he isn’t assailed by pain.

“What do you remember?”

He starts talking slowly, detailing his memories while pulling himself into a sitting position. He gets a little distracted by light shining off his right hand. If he had been fully triggered, he thinks, he would have come back to himself to find his hands dripping with the blood of his friends. He shoves _that_ thought away, locking it behind a reinforced door in his mind. Bee gives him a look like she knows what he’s doing, but it’s not like they don’t have enough to talk about, what with Spear’s unexpected appearance and death, so she lets it lie.

They don’t talk for long: Andrew finds it difficult to focus on anything outside of the pounding in his head and Bee trusts him to ask her for help when he needs it. He hasn’t had time to process anything yet. All he really wants to do is have a hot bath and sleep for several years.

He sends a quick group text to Renee, Aaron, Neil, Nicky, and Kevin as he’s leaving Bee’s office to let them know he’s awake and heading back to his apartment for rest, and almost trips over Neil who is sitting out in the hallway. Andrew gives him an unimpressed look before reaching towards him to drag him off the floor. He stops when he sees his metal hand and balls his fist, returning his hand to his side.

Neil gives him a perplexed look, but levers himself off the floor. “Hungry?” he asks, and Andrew notices that he’s holding a box. “I wanted to bring you something hot, but I wasn’t sure how long you’d be,” he continues, as he passes over the box which Andrew discovers is filled with pastries from his favourite bakery.

“Why,” says Andrew.

Neil just smiles. “I’ve got your back.”

* * *

Andrew physically feels much better the following morning, but the sight of his arms is still disconcerting. It’s a recurring problem he has: he never asked for his prosthetics or consented to them being hardwired into his nervous system. Yes, they are strong and useful and he would be dead without them, but sometimes they’re a symbol of everything that _they_ did to him and looking at them makes him angry. At these times it takes concentrated effort to not remove them by force.

He debates over what to do. Sitting alone with his thoughts is probably not the best idea, but he doesn’t think he can handle the whole team and their nosiness and concern. He steps out of his apartment and into the elevator, but doesn’t give a destination.

“Which Avengers are on the common floor?” he asks BRIAN.

“Walker, Day, and Josten,” the AI answers.

Andrew gives an inaudible sigh of relief and tells the elevator to take him there. He’s only taken about three steps out of the elevator when he registers an intruder, bringing his gun up instantly. A robot is standing near the windows, and it’s not one of the Reynolds Industries ones that populate the tower. It’s very humanoid, except for its bright orange skin.

“Whoa, Andrew,” says Neil. He, Renee, and Kevin are all relaxed, or they were until Andrew brought out his weapon.

“What the fuck is that?” he demands, his gun steady.

“Calm down, Monster,” says the robot, sounding exactly like SETH.

“What. The. Fuck,” repeats Andrew slowly and precisely.

“I mentioned him,” says Neil. “Remember? I’m not sure if you heard me, but I told you about the robot I found in Borneo.”

“I am an android, not a robot,” says the robot, sounding annoyed.

“Potato, po-tah-to,” says Neil.

“It followed you home so you kept it?” Andrew asks Neil dryly. “It was bad enough when SETH was in the ceiling, now he’s walking around?”

“I am not SETH,” says the android, despite still sharing SETH’s voice.

“As far as we can tell, when the cube attacked the tower it gained all of SETH’s knowledge and assimilated some of his characteristics,” says Renee.

“Hydra bought the cube from Tetsuji and fused it into an android body,” says Kevin, and, yes, Andrew can make out a blue glow in the android’s chest.

“That doesn’t explain why the fuck it’s here,” growls Andrew.

“Because of the ability to question the world and think for itself that Allison Reynolds programmed into her AI, I learned morality. I decided that I didn’t want to work for Hydra,” explains the android.

“You rose up to destroy your creators?” asks Andrew. “Reynolds made Skynet?”

“I always thought she would,” says Kevin.

“I am on your side,” says not-SETH.

“Until you decide that we’re the enemy,” says Andrew, and turns to the others. “You let the cube back into the tower, except worse, because it can walk and talk now?”

“And he can fly!” says Neil, sounding excited. “He wants to be an Avenger.”

Andrew doesn’t know this thing’s capabilities and he definitely doesn’t trust it to be on his team. “Let’s drop it in a volcano instead.”

“Is that a common thing to do in the future?” wonders Neil. “You keep suggesting it.”

“High temperature and pressure,” says Andrew. “Not even my arms would make it out unscathed. And it’s the present, not the future.”

“Gordon is here on a trial basis,” says Renee soothingly.

“Gordon?”

“I am not SETH, nor was I given a name,” says the android, “so I picked one for myself.”

“Great,” says Andrew. “Renee, can I talk to you outside for a minute?” He points one metal finger at the android. “You make any trouble or hurt anybody in this room and I’ll dismantle you into your component parts.”

Renee follows Andrew into the stairwell and then up to the roof.

“Since the cube is sentient, it likely retains information about its past owners,” she says without preamble. “If it’s on our side, it could help us uncover the Ravens.”

Andrew runs a hand through his hair. “We can’t trust it. We don’t know its capabilities and it already knows everything that SETH knew. We should catapult it into the sun.”

Renee smiles. “That’s hardly practical.”

“Where did a sentient, glowing, advanced AI even come from?” asks Andrew. “It’s far beyond even Reynolds to make such a thing.”

“Gordon says that he believes himself to be extraterrestrial in origin.”

“So he’s not just advanced tech, he’s advanced _alien_ tech?” says Andrew. “And you’ve let it into our home?”

“In my opinion he’s not malevolent,” says Renee, which calms Andrew a little. He trusts Renee’s instincts enough to give her the benefit of the doubt. “And Allison’s installed new safeguards into the tower’s systems.”

“Is overconfidence in Reynolds’ abilities sexually transmitted?” he asks snidely. “I don’t remember you having this much blind faith in her before the two of you were sleeping together.”

Renee pauses. “I didn’t think anyone knew.”

Andrew gives her a flat look. “You live in a building full of spies.”

“You’re not a spy.”

“But I am observant,” he says, and then sighs. Renee is his friend, which means that sometimes he has to do things for her that he would never do for anyone else, such as apologize or pretend to like Allison Reynolds. “I’m sorry I was rude about it. I don’t know what you see in her, obviously, but you’ve seemed happier lately.”

“I am,” she says, quietly glowing with pleasure. “Thank you.”

“I’m still not on your side about the flying android,” he says.

“Neil likes him,” she says slyly. “He’d be sad if you hurt Gordon.”

Andrew narrows his eyes at her.

“You’re not the only one who is observant,” she says with a shit-eating grin.

Andrew just growls and heads back downstairs for breakfast.

* * *

Despite the fact that Jean Moreau is their hostage and Gordon is an unknown, Wilds invites them to train with the Avengers. Andrew steadfastly refuses and, much like he did when Neil was new to the team, watches from the sidelines. If they ever end up as enemies he’ll have the advantage of knowing their fighting styles and capabilities without them knowing his. Except Gordon, of course, has SETH’s knowledge so he probably has in depth analyses of all the Avengers.

The fact that Moreau and Kevin were both trained by the same people is evident in their fighting styles. Moreau doesn’t have Kevin’s accuracy but his ability to confuse the minds of his opponents gives him a distinct advantage. He’s agreed to stay out of everyone’s memories, but he can still manipulate minds enough so that he can pass completely unnoticed among them.

Gordon, on the other hand, is very noticeable. On top of being bright orange, he can fly and is extremely strong: he may even be stronger than Andrew. He’s fairly clumsy in his movements, clearly not used to having a physical form. He’s also impervious to most weapons; Andrew thinks that his threat of reducing the android into tiny pieces may be the only way to disable him.

Renee also sits out a fair number of sessions, joining Andrew on the sidelines and watching Moreau and Gordon with intense focus.

“You haven’t trained in awhile,” she says in an offhand manner one day.

“I still put in my gym time,” he argues, but he knows what she’s implying. He hasn’t sparred or trained with any of his teammates in the weeks since they returned from Borneo.

“We should start sparring together again.”

“No,” he says quickly, reflexively. His dreams lately have been blood soaked: Spear whispering in his ear, telling him to kill his friends; his arms covered in their blood, the red liquid dripping from his fingers. He can’t stomach the thought of touching anyone he cares about with the weapons that were grafted onto him; Renee’s suggestion that he uses the arms to commit violence against her makes him nauseated.

Renee takes her eyes off of the training session and pins him in place with a piercing look. “Are you talking to Betsy?” she asks.

He balls his hands into fists, watching the overhead lights shine off the metal. “I’m working on it,” he promises.

She covers one of his fists with her own and he has to concentrate in order not to jerk away. “It’ll be okay,” she says softly. “I have faith in you.”

He shakes her off and crosses his arms. “You’re supposed to be watching,” he says gruffly.

* * *

Andrew’s convinced that no one but Renee has noticed his sudden aversion to his own body parts until Neil invites him to his apartment one day. Andrew’s never been in here before: the two of them are both possessive of their own space. The apartment has the same layout as Andrew’s, but it holds many more mementos and decorations. Andrew can see Boyd’s influence, as well as Wilds’ and Reynolds’. He’s surprised to see a photo of himself: he and Neil are standing in the Pong room facing each other and are clearly in the middle of discussing something - tactics he guesses, based on their surroundings.

There are also older, unfamiliar items placed haphazardly throughout the apartment. These are keepsakes from Neil’s former life, the one he had before he crashed the plane.

Neil directs Andrew to the couch and disappears briefly into his bedroom. He returns carrying a bag full of what he reveals to be cans of paint.

Andrew looks up in confusion.

“I have an idea,” says Neil. “And you can say no, and you can tell me I overstepped, but I think it might help.” He starts setting the cans of paint on the coffee table one by one. There is no red paint. “I made sure that this type of paint could be applied and easily removed from metal.”

Comprehension dawns. “You want to paint the arms.”

“I want to paint _your_ arms,” corrects Neil. “Can I?”

Andrew shrugs, uncomfortable with the way that Neil has figured out what is bothering him. “If you want.”

“I need a yes or no answer.”

Andrew deliberates, looking back and forth between the paints and Neil’s stupidly earnest face. “I hate you a lot right now,” he says. “Yes.”

Neil smiles happily and dips his paintbrush into one of the paints. “Can you feel that?” he asks as he starts drawing curving lines on the inside of the right arm.

“Not really,” says Andrew. He can feel temperature and pressure on the metal, but the light touch of the paintbrush is just beyond his sensory capabilities. Every so often he can feel a faint almost tickling sensation.

He watches as Neil paints vines along one arm, bursting with flowers of every colour. The other arm gets animal tracks and the animals they belong to: a fox, several birds, a raccoon, a tiger. Neil then starts drawing symbols. The first one is the Captain America shield, but he makes it rainbow coloured instead of red, white, and blue.

“Claiming me?” asks Andrew.

“Sure,” says Neil lightly. “You can be my sidekick.”

“ _You_ can be _my_ sidekick,” counters Andrew. “In the comics the sidekick’s always the one getting into trouble.”

Neil draws a spider next, followed by a hawk, a bee, and a miniature hulk.

Andrew relaxes as Neil paints, allowing himself to zone out as his arms get more and more colourful. After a while Neil starts to talk. He tells stories of living in France with his mother in the thirties. Andrew listens closely; Neil has shared numerous Howling Commandos and other war-time stories, but he’s never mentioned anything about his life before he was imprisoned in Kreischberg. Andrew’s aware that Neil trusts him, but this is indisputable proof of how deep that trust runs.

Eventually, Andrew’s stomach growls. Neil laughs.

“I’ll go pick up some food. What are you in the mood for?”

“Thai,” says Andrew distractedly, watching the paint dry on his arms.

It doesn’t take Neil long before he’s back with the food. Andrew trails after him into the kitchen where they sit at the island. Neil passes over a container of pad thai. Andrew lets their fingers brush together as he takes it.

“Thank you,” he says, trusting that Neil will infer that he’s talking about more than just the food.

“Any time,” Neil replies, a satisfied look on his face.

* * *

Andrew’s still not sold on Moreau or Gordon joining the Avengers when Wymack requests a face-to-face meeting with Moreau. Kevin and Renee accompany him to DC where the Triskelion, SHIELD headquarters, is located.

About a week after they leave, Andrew is disturbed during the day by a call from an unknown number. Since several of his colleagues frequently make use of burner phones he answers it. It’s Renee.

“Andrew, hello,” she says. “How’s it going?” Renee does not call to chat, she calls because she needs him for something. Her informal greeting is worrying: it means that she believes that their call could be monitored. It means that she’s in trouble and he’s instantly alert.

“Fine,” he says. “How’s DC?”

“Oh, you know,” she says. “Swampy. What have you and Neil been up to?”

“The usual,” he replies. “I finally got him to watch the Terminator movies so he understands all the Skynet references I’ve been making.”

“Did you know that the Smithsonian has an exhibit about him? It’s called Captain America: Fact and Fiction.”

“Is it any good?”

“I haven’t had the time to go yet,” she says. “I think it’d be more enjoyable with Neil here.”

“We don’t have any plans. We could drive up and all go together?”

“Sounds good. Bring Allison and Gordon, too. Matt and Dan are already here, so we could make a day of it. Maybe even go see the Captain America monument in Arlington.”

“I’ll ask.”

“You could even stop by Camp Lehigh in Jersey and make it a whole Captain America-themed trip,” suggests Renee.

“I’m sure Neil will enjoy being mocked for a prolonged period of time.”

She laughs. “I’m looking forward to seeing you.”

“Tomorrow,” he promises.

“Until then,” she says and disconnects.

He stares at his phone for a couple beats before leaving his apartment. “BRIAN, I need to speak with Neil, Reynolds, and the android,” he says. “Call them all to the common floor. Also, what is Camp Lehigh?”

Andrew listens as BRIAN explains that Camp Lehigh was an army training camp and the very first SHIELD base after the war, where many attempts to recreate the serum were made. It’s been abandoned since the mid-nineties.

Neil’s already in the common room when he arrives, and Gordon shows up not long afterwards. Reynolds breezes in last, but much sooner than Andrew had been expecting. Either she wasn’t in the middle of anything or her curiosity about why Andrew would want to talk to her outweighed her need to be fashionably late.

“Renee called me,” he says. “She was being cryptic, worried about our phones being tapped, but something’s going on in DC. She wants us all there.”

“I’ll warm up the quinjet,” says Reynolds.

“No,” Andrew interjects. “She wants subtlety. We should drive.”

“I am not _driving_ to DC,” replies Reynolds haughtily.

“Well Neil and I are,” he says. “And we have to make a stop first. It might be best if you fly ahead in your suit to see what’s going on. The android can go with you.”

“How is Iron Man blasting into town more subtle than a quinjet?” asks Neil.

“Don’t announce yourself,” Andrew tells Reynolds. “Can you manage that?”

“Where are we supposed to go? The Triskelion?”

“No, Arlington Cemetery,” says Andrew. “Land somewhere on the outskirts of town and visit the Captain America monument. Renee will have left a message there.”

“Did she gave you any idea what’s going on?” asks Reynolds, worry entering her tone.

“She called for help,” says Andrew. “So I imagine it’s very, very bad.”

* * *

It is dark when he and Neil reach Camp Lehigh. The site is surrounded by chain link fence with signs proclaiming it private property. The padlock is no match for Andrew’s hand; he crushes it easily. They cautiously make their way onto the site, Andrew taking point.

Neil makes a little sound of realization, his head swivelling around to survey their surroundings. “I’ve been here before,” he says. “We stayed here for a couple nights in ‘43 after we got off the boat from England and before we took the train west.”

“Look the same?”

“No,” says Neil ruefully. “But most of the buildings haven’t moved. That one is new, though.” He points at a nearby munitions building and cocks his head. “It also shouldn’t be there, according to army regulations.”

“You know army regulations?” asks Andrew, headed towards the building. He’s not sure why Renee wanted him to come here, but starting his investigation in a suspiciously placed building makes sense. “I thought the whole captain thing was just for show.”

“It is,” confirms Neil, “but I did spend a couple years around actual soldiers. I picked up some stuff by osmosis.”

Inside the building is a fairly standard office, nothing out of the ordinary until Andrew notices air flowing strangely from under a bookcase. It leads to a secret door, which leads to another office, this one with the SHIELD symbol on the wall.

“Oh,” says Neil, taking in the portraits of the three founders of SHIELD on the wall. Strangely, his attention isn’t on Kayleigh Day’s photo, but on one of the two men.

“Who is it?” Andrew asks.

“That one is Allison’s father,” Neil says pointing at the picture he’s not looking at, “and this is my uncle Stuart.” He snorts. “He was so British. I can’t even imagine him here in _New Jersey_ dealing with Kayleigh’s abrasive Irishness.” His accent has changed a little: Andrew’s noticed that whenever he speaks of his pre-war life, his pronunciation and word usage turns more British than his usual generic American accent.

“BRIAN said that this was where SHIELD started,” offers Andrew.

“Very clandestine,” says Neil, “especially considering that it was mentioned by name in the Captain America comics.”

“You actually read those comics?”

“You are underestimating how boring war can be,” replies Neil with good humour. “I read anything I could get my hands on, including thinly-veiled patriotic propaganda.”

Andrew notices a slight hum and uncovers yet _another_ secret door, this one opening into an elevator.

“Why does the already secret office need a secret elevator?” he asks.

“Knowing the people involved, probably so that they could be as dramatic as possible.”

The elevator takes them down, into a bunker filled with large computer servers.

“Well this is… ominous,” says Neil. “I’m suddenly really annoyed that you’ve been having me watch movies about evil computers lately.”

“Shall we play a game?” Andrew replies, heading to the central console. The computer equipment here is much more modern than in the rest of the bunker. He initializes the system and the biggest monitor flashes to life, pixels forming a face directly out of Andrew’s nightmares.

“Minyard, Andrew Joseph, born November 4th, 1990. Wesninski, Nathaniel Abram, born January 19th, 1920. Welcome.” They both flinch violently when the face speaks, but for different reasons.

“How does it know that?” asks Neil. He turns to Andrew and catches whatever look is on his face. “Do you know who that is?”

“Dr. Proust,” Andrew manages to say, his throat feeling like sandpaper. “He made these,” he says while waving his arms. “He worked for Department X.”

“Correction,” says the computer image of Proust. “I _infiltrated_ Department X. I have always been a loyal Raven.”

“You can hear us?” asks Neil.

Proust shakes his disembodied head in disappointment. “Clearly. You are standing in my brain.”

“You died,” says Andrew. “Or, rather, Proust did. In 2013. Stomach cancer.”

“Yes, the flesh was weak,” says Proust sadly. “But I could not deprive the world of my magnificent intellect. My consciousness was transferred here before I died so that I could continue steering the Ravens towards the final solution.”

“Final solution?” repeats Neil, sounding sick. “Why is there always a ‘final solution’?”

“Peace, order,” says Proust. “Twenty million troublemakers will die and the rest of the population will submit to the Ravens' rule.”

“Sounds fun,” says Andrew. “Why are you in a SHIELD facility?”

Proust smiles, an oily, ugly expression. “We are everywhere,” he says. “We have successfully infiltrated every single influential government and organization. As for SHIELD, we’ve been here since the beginning.” The monitor shows a picture of a dapper looking Japanese man shaking hands with Anthony Reynolds. “In the spirit of peace and cooperation, Lord Kengo Moriyama was invited, no one ever suspecting his true allegiance to the Ravens. From within SHIELD itself he grew his network, fostering instability and chaos until people clamoured for us to take control.”

“What do you mean?” asks Andrew.

“Operation Insight,” says Proust, sounding gleeful. “Three fully weaponized helicarriers will be launched tomorrow, linked to a targeting satellite. The World Security Council approved them and got funding because of the claim that they will protect the world; that terrorists and criminals will have nowhere to hide. How naive! The Ravens will eliminate any threats against us and the survivors will rejoice in our new world order.”

“And we’re two of the targets?” guesses Neil.

“Of course you are,” says Proust, just as the elevator exit slams shut and a steel door slides into place. “Unfortunately, you’ll be dead long before the helicarriers are deployed. I’m afraid I’ve been distracting you; a missile is on its way.”

Andrew surveys the room frantically, spotting a grate on the floor. “Come on,” he tells Neil, lifting the grate and shoving Neil into the space underneath. He covers Neil’s body with his own just as the missile hits. He uses his arms and the grate to keep as much debris off of them as possible, but he’s soon overwhelmed by the heat and the weight of the rubble and he falls into unconsciousness.

* * *

Andrew comes to some time later, sitting in the passenger seat of an unfamiliar car. Neil is driving at a steady pace, staying with the bulk of the traffic around them, evidently experienced at being on the run.

“Steal many cars during the war?” Andrew croaks.

“Not so many during the war,” says Neil. “My mother taught me earlier; I think the first time I hot-wired a car I was thirteen.” He glances over at Andrew. “Don’t move too quickly, you’ve got a nasty head wound.”

Andrew can feel that: his head is hammering and his forehead feels itchy. He rubs his hand over his head and dried blood flakes off. “Are you alright?” he asks Neil.

Neil’s covered in dirt and his clothes are full of little tears. He has visible bruises and scratches on his exposed skin. “I’m fine,” he says. “I had a supersoldier as a shield. I dug us out, ditched our phones, hauled your heavy ass away from the STRIKE team that came looking for us, and trudged through the woods for awhile until I found a car to steal. We’re about two hours from DC.”

“You carried me?”

“I’m stronger than I look.”

Andrew peers out the window. “Where exactly are we?” he asks.

“Delaware,” says Neil. “About half an hour south of Wilmington. We’re almost at the Maryland border.”

“It would have been faster to stay on the I-95 through Baltimore,” Andrew points out.

“I like Baltimore even less than I like Borneo,” says Neil darkly. “Do you think Renee knows about the helicarriers?”

“She’d better,” replies Andrew. “I don’t want to have to come up with a plan to disable them alone.”

Shortly after midnight, Neil pulls off the highway. “I need to get gas,” he says. “The owners were inconsiderate and left it less than half full.”

“How dare they not fill up for the thieves that stole their car.”

“What jerks,” agrees Neil. “I’m going to fill it up and then stock up inside.”

Andrew heads to the restroom to clean up the blood on his head. None of his wounds are still bleeding - thank you, serum - but people would notice if he were covered in blood and he doesn’t want to be memorable right now. He returns to the car and settles in the driver’s seat.

Neil gets back to the car, a shopping bag filled with water and Gatorade bottles, protein bars, and a large black hoodie that reads MARYLAND across the chest. Andrew gratefully takes the offerings, devouring the food and rehydrating. Healing is always taxing on his already increased metabolism. The hoodie is too big, making him feel like a child, but it serves its purpose by covering his arms.

They make good time getting to DC, the roads almost deserted in the middle of the night. They ditch the car and steal a new one when they reach the city, then head to Arlington Cemetery. Andrew parks at the outskirts and Neil uses his speed to visit the Captain America monument. He’s back in a couple minutes, rattling off a random series of numbers and letters. Andrew’s able to decrypt Renee’s message, which provide GPS coordinates. They trade cars again and head to the rendezvous point, which ends up being a dam outside of the city.

They’re obviously expected as Kevin meets them at the entrance. He looks worse for wear, sporting several bruises and scrapes.

“How fucked are we?” Andrew asks.

“On a scale of one to ten? Seventeen,” answers Kevin gravely, characteristically dramatic. He leads them into the secure location to where the others are gathered around a long table. They all look like they’ve gone through the wringer. Wymack is there and he looks like he’s been hit by a bus: both his eyes are black, he has one arm in a sling, and he’s covered in bandages. Renee’s been shot in the shoulder and has one of her wrists in a brace, Boyd and Wilds are both covered in bruises, even Moreau has his fair share of injuries. Naturally, Reynolds looks like she just finished shooting a shampoo commercial. Gordon just looks like a stupid, orange, slightly bewildered android.

“How was Lehigh?” Renee asks.

“Fucking _Jersey_ ,” mutters Kevin.

Neil fills everyone in about what the Proust-computer said and the missile that buried them in concrete.

“I knew Project Insight was bad news,” says Wymack.

“And yet,” says Andrew.

Wymack shakes his head. “SHIELD has a board of directors, my position doesn’t give me as much power as you would think. And the World Security Council pushed hard for the helicarriers. Especially Ichirou Moriyama.”

“He’s also one of the only people who would have the clearance to fire a domestic missile,” supplies Wilds.

“Is he any relation to Kengo Moriyama?” asks Neil hotly.

“He’s his son,” says Kevin, wincing.

“SHIELD really is completely infested with Ravens, then?” asks Reynolds.

“There are probably a large number of loyal SHIELD agents,” says Wilds, “but the Ravens are entrenched in key areas. We know that Ichirou’s the interim director since Wymack’s MIA, and STRIKE is compromised.”

“All four STRIKE teams are Ravens?” asks Andrew.

“At least three of them are,” says Renee. “Kevin, Jean, and I were attacked by STRIKE two on the highway in broad daylight, Wymack’s car was slammed into and attacked by STRIKE four when he was driving downtown, and STRIKE three attempted to take Dan and Matt into custody at the Triskelion.”

“They surrounded us in an elevator,” explains Boyd.

“I’m pretty sure it was STRIKE one that was crawling all over Lehigh after the missile hit,” says Neil.

“You can bet that the STRIKE teams will be guarding the helicarriers, assuring their launch tomorrow,” says Wymack.

“Do we have a plan to stop them from murdering millions of people?” asks Andrew.

“We do,” says Reynolds proudly. “The helicarriers will begin firing when they reach twenty thousand feet in the air. The targeting is linked to a satellite, but the targets are chosen through a chip, like these,” she dumps a handful of computer chips on the table. “It’s housed in the lower mainframe of the aircraft. All we have to do is replace the chips that are currently on board with these ones that I’ve reprogrammed. These chips override the targeting, making the three helicarriers fire on each other. They’ll be destroyed.”

“And what are we going to do about the Ravens?” asks Neil. “They can’t stay hidden inside SHIELD.”

“No,” says Wymack. “We’ll have to expose them.” He sighs deeply, looking sad. “In the nineties, Kayleigh became disillusioned with SHIELD’s direction, convinced that the organization that she founded was one day going to become dangerous to the people it was supposed to protect. Her last act as director was to build a failsafe into the system: in the event of SHIELD turning against the government, all its secrets could be uploaded directly onto the internet.”

Reynolds raises her eyebrows. “Seems extreme.”

“Kayleigh and I argued about it, I didn’t agree that it was necessary,” says Wymack, looking self-deprecating. “I’m sorry to be wrong. The Ravens have taken advantage of SHIELD’s secrecy to stay in the shadows. If we release the data, they won’t be able to hide any longer.”

“So anyone can just waltz in and release all of SHIELD’s top secret files?” asks Boyd.

“No, the failsafe requires biometric scans of two approved individuals.”

“‘Approved individuals’?” echoes Reynolds.

“A handful of people that Kayleigh trusted,” explains Wymack. “She kept the list updated until the end of her life. I’m one of the authorized personnel… and Kevin is another.”

Kevin blanches. “What do I have to do?”

“We have to get to the director’s office to activate the failsafe,” says Wymack.

“It’ll be heavily guarded,” Wilds says.

“I can help,” offers Moreau. “I can get the three of us through the building without anyone noticing us.”

“I’ll have to go in with you,” says Wilds. “I’ll need access to SHIELD’s internal network to coordinate everyone and to ensure that the new helicarrier targets are accepted.”

“Then the rest of us will be responsible for replacing the targeting chips?” asks Boyd.

“Yes,” says Wilds. “Teams of two, one for each helicarrier, and a flyer on each team. Once those things take off, you’ll need wings to get off of them.”

“I’ll take Neil,” says Boyd.

Renee looks between Andrew and Gordon. “I’ll go with Gordon,” she offers. Reynolds makes a noise of protest. “Andrew doesn’t trust him enough to work properly with him,” Renee points out. Andrew gives her a nod in thanks.

“We’ll be leaving at 0600,” says Wilds. “Everybody rest up and heal as much as possible; we’re going to be up against some heavy resistance tomorrow.”

“For the first time in my life I wish Aaron was here,” says Reynolds. “The Hulk could easily smash those stupid helicarriers out of the sky.”

“He’s at a genetics conference in Barcelona,” says Andrew.

“Well, I guess if we fail and are all murdered by guns from above, he’ll still be around to avenge us,” says Boyd.

“The Hulk versus all the Ravens,” muses Reynolds. “My money’s on Minyard.”

* * *

“Shit, shit, fuck, fuck, fuck,” swears Reynolds. “Brace for fucking impact, fuck.”

She and Andrew hit the ground, hard. Andrew can feel the reverberation travel up his spine as he rolls forwards.

STRIKE one is converging on them, Jeremy Knox at their head. Reynolds is trapped in her suit and Andrew’s arms aren’t working, having been disabled by the same EMP that send the Iron Man suit tumbling to earth.

Things had started out pretty well. Moreau, Wilds, Wymack, and Kevin had successfully infiltrated the Triskelion and taken over a control room. Wilds had broadcast a speech across the PA system, explaining that SHIELD was infested with Ravens and the Avengers were there to stop Project Insight. She gave a rousing plea to all loyal SHIELD agents for help.

Andrew couldn’t tell if it made any difference inside the building, but it had succeeded in getting someone to launch the helicarriers earlier than expected. He and Reynolds had gotten onto the alpha carrier, only to find the entire STRIKE three team, led by the goddamn gorilla Chris Hawking, waiting for them.

“STRIKE two is on bravo carrier,” Renee had reported.

“I bet I can beat all of STRIKE three before you can shoot your way through Leverett’s team of hacks,” he said.

“Challenge accepted,” she had replied.

Reynolds had targeted the anti-aircraft guns and air support while Andrew cut a bloody swath through STRIKE three. He hadn’t paid much attention to the comms, except to note that Boyd reported STRIKE four was on the charlie helicarrier, and that Riko Moriyama, Ichirou’s son, was leading them.

It wasn’t until he heard Neil’s anguished scream of, “No! Matt! MATT!” that he started paying attention.

“Report,” said Wilds with a hard edge in her voice.

“He was hit by something, I don’t know what,” said Neil, his voice raw. “His wings stopped working and he fell.”

“EMP,” came Boyd’s breathless voice. “Took out the wings, so I deployed my chute, but I’m grounded.” He sounded frustrated. “Someone else will have to get Neil.”

Andrew had found himself relieved to hear Boyd’s voice. He shot his two remaining opponents and made his way into the mainframe. It had been easier than expected to replace the targeting chip.

“Alpha lock,” he had said.

“I’ve got it,” confirmed Wilds.

“Reynolds, I'm headed topside. Come pick me up and we’ll go to charlie carrier,” he said, heading back up to the deck. “Neil, can you disable that EMP?”

“I’ll try,” came Neil’s voice, sounding tight. “I’m slightly incapacitated.”

“What do you mean?” Boyd demanded.

“I’ve been shot.”

Andrew had faltered in his stride and then had picked up the pace.

“It’s not bad, just near my knee,” Neil had continued, “but I can’t run.”

“Bravo lock,” Renee had said. “Gordon and I can also head over to charlie carrier now.”

“I’ve got it,” Wilds had replied. “But we’re down one flyer. Either you or Andrew have to head to the ground.”

Andrew had reached the deck of the carrier to find Reynolds waiting for him while firing her repulsors at all approaching enemies. He attached the harness she wore to the back of his uniform and then braced himself to be carried high in the air with only a reinforced strap to prevent him from falling to his death. He reflected about how much he hated the plan, but that was overridden by his need to get to Neil.

Reynolds had taken off, only to be immediately hit by an EMP cannon that neither of them had seen on the alpha carrier’s deck.

It had been one of Andrew’s nightmares: falling helplessly to the ground from a great height. And if that wasn’t bad enough, now he’s about to be shot by Jeremy fucking Knox who is apparently a goddamn traitor despite his sunny smiles.

Knox comes to a stop several feet away from him and lowers his gun. “We’re here to help,” he says. “We cleared the launch bays of Ravens following Wilds’ announcement.”

Andrew expels a sigh of relief and tunes back into the comms chatter.

“Two minutes until the carriers reach twenty thousand feet and can link to the satellite,” reports Wilds. “You need to replace that chip, Neil.”

“Working on it,” says Neil, panting hard. “I’ve almost limped my way into the mainframe. I have a feeling that Riko Moriyama doesn’t like me; he keeps shooting me.”

“Renee,” says Andrew urgently.

“We can’t get over there with the EMP still active,” she replies. “Gordon, drop me off on the ground so you can try to get into the mainframe from below to help Neil.”

“Okay,” says Neil. “Okay, okay. Ow. That’s a lot of blood.”

Andrew’s arms are starting to come back online: he can feel a slight tingling sensation.

“Reynolds?” he asks. “Can you get him?”

“Two minutes to suit reboot,” she replies.

“Okay, charlie lock,” says Neil.

“I’ve got it,” replies Wilds. “Get out of there. The ships will start firing in T-minus twenty seconds.”

“Get out of there, Neil,” echoes Boyd.

“There’s not enough time,” admits Neil.

“I always knew that you were a goddamn martyr,” growls Andrew.

Neil chokes out a laugh that sounds suspiciously like a sob. “You’re not the first person to tell me that,” he says, just as all three of the helicarriers open fire.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being much longer than I was expecting, but yay! It's finished. Please leave me a comment to let me know if you liked it. Thank you to everyone who read this, especially those people who took the time to comment, and ESPECIALLY those people who commented on every chapter. You know who you are and I love you.

Andrew sits beside Neil’s hospital bed, waiting. He sinks into the absolute stillness that he’d perfected when he was more machine than man. He keeps his mind blank save for the steady beeping of Neil’s heart monitor. If he lets his thoughts wander he thinks about the helicarriers crashing and thinking Neil had died; he can still taste the fear at the back of throat.

None of the helicarriers had lasted long against the weaponry of the other two. The bravo carrier had splashed down into the river first, followed by the charlie carrier. Alpha carrier had ended up crashing into the Triskelion itself, causing panic and confusion. Luckily Wilds, Wymack, Moreau, and Kevin were able to escape in a helicopter.

It had been Gordon who had found Neil in the sinking wreckage. Being in the bowels of the carrier had saved him by protecting him from direct fire and insulating him from the crash. He was pinned under a support beam, but his enhanced physiology had kept him alive long enough to be found. He’d undergone emergency surgery to dig the bullets out of him and repair the damage to his internal organs, and the doctors had given him a positive prognosis. Andrew tries to allow the heart monitor to convince him that Neil will be alright.

Andrew’s not been paying attention to the outside world, but Renee tells him that it’s like a very large anthill has been kicked over. With the SHIELD files dumped onto the internet, hundreds of Raven double agents have been exposed worldwide. The UN is forming a task force to root out and prosecute the traitors.

SHIELD is in shambles: Wymack’s pulling together as many loyal agents as he can to attempt to mitigate the void left by SHIELD’s collapse. Luckily the Avengers are unaffected as they’ve always been independent of SHIELD and rather spectacularly proved themselves as opponents to the Ravens.

Neil shifts a little and his breathing changes cadence, indicating that he’s close to waking up. It won’t be first time that he’s opened his eyes in the three days since the helicarriers launched, but he hasn’t been aware or coherent yet.

Andrew watches as Neil blinks his eyes open lethargically and slowly scans the room. His eyes catch on Andrew and sharpen into recognition. He tries to speak, but barely manages a rasp due to his dry throat. Andrew offers him a cup of water, manoeuvring the straw into his mouth.

Neil drinks a couple sips and then sputters. “Andrew,” he manages to say. “What year is it?”

“2018,” answers Andrew. “It’s only been three days since your dramatic plunge into the Potomac.”

“Hmm,” says Neil thoughtfully.

“Were you aware that when you’re on a large, weaponized aircraft there are actually _other options_ rather than staying on board and crashing it into the nearest body of water?” Andrew asks conversationally, masking how angry he is.

“I’m fine,” defends Neil.

“They dug four bullets out of you,” says Andrew. “You have a couple broken ribs, a lacerated liver, a fractured cheekbone, and a hell of a concussion. You are not fine.”

Neil attempts to shrug, but winces when the bullet wound in his shoulder pulls. “I have accelerated healing. I’ve had worse.”

“Have you?”

Neil considers. “Probably not since I got injected with the serum,” he admits.

“I don’t know why I bother to put up with you.”

“Me neither,” replies Neil placidly. “Especially since you keep claiming that you hate me.”

“I do hate you,” says Andrew instantly, not wanting Neil to be confused on this point. Andrew hasn’t felt this much in years, if ever, and he hates that Neil can make him do so.

“I know,” says Neil, and he does. “Doesn’t mean you don’t want to kiss me.”

Andrew feels flayed open but he narrows his eyes. “Maybe once you’ve brushed your teeth. You’ve been unconscious for three days and you swallowed more than your fair share of river water.”

Neil grimaces. “Good call,” he says, taking another sip of the water. He settles back on his pillows and fixes his gaze on Andrew’s face. “What now?”

“I was thinking of taking a vacation,” says Andrew, surprising himself. It had been Bee’s idea: he’d called her, and Nicky, and Aaron shortly after the fight on the helicarriers to assure them that he was alive and well, knowing that they would be worried once they saw the news. Neil had been out of surgery and expected to survive when he’d called Bee and their conversation had turned to the future. She pointed out that he’d never had a break, a chance to go somewhere new and relax. With the recent additions to the Avengers maybe now was a good time to take some time for himself, since he probably needed it after all the recent stress.

Renee had agreed, telling him that as long as he kept his phone on for emergencies that he could take some time off with Neil while Neil recovered from his injuries. Andrew had dismissed the idea, but apparently it had taken root, causing him to blurt it out now.

“Am I invited?” asks Neil. Andrew gives him a flat look for asking such a stupid question. “Alright,” he says with a small smile. “Vacation.”

* * *

Neil’s discharged from the hospital a couple days later. Andrew suspects that his insistence that he was fine which led to quite a bit of complaining encouraged the staff to let him go slightly earlier than they’d originally planned. They are probably regretting meeting him, forever tarnishing their previous conceptions about Captain America now that they know he’s whiny and stubborn.

Renee lends Andrew a car for their trip (there is no way that Andrew’s getting on a plane or letting Neil on one), a black, shiny, expensive Maserati. He raises an eyebrow at her when he sees it: it’s definitely one of Reynolds’ cars.

Renee gives him a sunny smile. “I got it in exchange for a favour,” she explains.

“I have no interest in owing Reynolds a favour.”

“She wouldn’t want it from you, anyway. It was a sexual favour.” Her grin turns predatory. “I enjoyed paying it.”

“So I owe you a favour?” he asks dryly.

“Let’s call it payback for you going to Lehigh and getting a missile shot at you.”

Neil seems surprised when he sees the car, but settles down quickly enough. The interior luxury makes travelling easier on his healing body.

They head south - away from New York and Baltimore and DC - along the Atlantic coast. They spend a few days in Virginia Beach, before continuing on to Myrtle Beach. It’s quite cool, even for late October, so there aren’t many tourists around.

Halloween falls on one of their days in Myrtle Beach, much to Neil’s confusion. Apparently dressing up in costumes and begging for candy wasn’t something that occurred in Depression-era Europe. There are a large number of small, costumed Avengers. Captain America costumes seem quite popular this year, probably owing to Neil’s resurrection, but they also spot little Winter Soldiers and Black Widows and even a tiny Hulk or two. They stock up on half-priced candy the next morning.

After Halloween they head inland, deciding by mutual agreement to avoid Florida.

Andrew knows that the two of them can’t take off on an unprecedented and impromptu vacation without their teammates’ notice. Neil’s in frequent text communication with Boyd, Wilds, Reynolds, and Nicky, and Andrew is fully prepared to have their trip crashed at some point by at least one of them. He’s very surprised when the first teammate to contact them is Aaron.

As soon as he and Neil arrive at the restaurant in Columbia, where Aaron invited them, he can tell that this whole outing wasn’t Aaron’s idea. Katelyn is with him, clutching his arm and smiling happily.

“Happy Birthday!” she exclaims excitedly when Andrew and Neil are within hearing distance.

“It’s your birthday?” asks Neil.

“You knew that,” says Andrew. “Proust announced it in the bunker at Lehigh.”

Neil scoffs. “Forgive me for having other things on my mind at that time. Happy birthday,” he says stiffly to Aaron.

The dinner goes better than Andrew had expected, mainly due to Katelyn’s frankly heroic efforts to keep the conversation going. Andrew’s still fairly indifferent to her, but he catches the soft, almost reverent look that Aaron bestows upon her and decides that she can stay. Her total acceptance of the Hulk doesn’t hurt, either.

Later that night, Neil emerges from the shower in their hotel room wearing nothing but a towel. Andrew critically eyes his healing wounds, noticing that the bullet scars appear much older than they should, evidence of Neil’s rapid healing.

Neil drops his towel and drapes himself over the bed provocatively.

“Happy birthday,” he says in his best approximation of a sultry voice. He gestures at his naked body. “Here’s your present.” It’s a little absurd. Still, Andrew’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“You didn’t even let me unwrap it,” he complains, and proceeds to prevent Neil from being able to make any smart retorts by occupying his mouth in more pleasant ways.

They continue in a general westerly direction, deciding where to go based on road signs or brochures in hotels where they stop. Neil expresses a wish to see New Orleans, so they head south. They spend a few days wandering around the French Quarter and Andrew decides he hates being a tourist. He much prefers travelling: he likes remaining on the move, safe in a metal container under his control, listening to Neil or music or an audiobook.

Neil’s healed enough that he’s gotten antsy from inactivity and has decided that morning runs are the answer. Andrew doesn’t agree but he also doesn’t want to leave Neil unsupervised so he begrudgingly joins him.

They almost literally run into Boyd on their last morning in New Orleans. At first Andrew thinks he’s a hostile stranger and he has his gun out and ready to fire between one breath and the next.

“Hey guys!” says Boyd cheerfully, barely even blinking at the weapon.

Neil greets him more cordially than Andrew and invites him to breakfast with them. Boyd explains that there’s a SHIELD facility nearby that was shut down in the Ravens purge, but now there are reports of unexplained deaths near the abandoned lab.

“You guys want to take a break from your vacation to do a little old-fashioned detective work?” he asks with a gleam in his eye.

“Last time we went to a defunct SHIELD facility someone shot a missile at us,” Andrew points out.

“I’m nearly positive that won’t happen this time,” says Boyd.

Neil glances at him and Andrew shrugs. He doesn’t really mind going with Boyd and he knows that Neil will be happier that they give him backup. Truthfully, Andrew will also feel better knowing that Boyd has backup.

Andrew didn’t skimp when he packed weapons so the three of them are carrying a veritable armoury between them when they enter the recently deserted lab.

“What kind of work were they doing here?” asks Neil.

“Officially it’s a genetics and sequencing lab, but who knows what kind of quack science the Ravens authorized.”

They find out fairly quickly what kind of quack science was going on when they’re attacked by an extra-large, glowing alligator.

“What’s the purpose of the radioactive glow?” pants Neil once they’ve neutralized it.

“Who knows what goes through these people’s heads?” groans Matt. “Jesus Christ, why can’t they be, for once, curing cancer?”

Looking through the files tells them that the gators were radio-tagged, so they spend the rest of the day tracking down and disposing of the remaining mutants. By the time Boyd drops them back at their hotel they are dirty, smelly, and covered in mutant alligator slime. Boyd smiles and waves sheepishly as Andrew decisively closes the hotel room door in his face.

“It was nice of you to help Matt,” says Neil once they’ve showered. Andrew’s taken out his special kit that he uses to clean between the metal plates of his arms and Neil’s helping him make sure all the alligator goo is gone. “You’re a nice person,” Neil continues teasingly.

“Take that back.”

“Hmmm, no,” says Neil after pretending to consider it. “I’ll rub your shoulders to make you feel better, how about that?”

Since they’ve been sharing a room Neil has of course noticed Andrew’s yoga habit and he’s offered to massage Andrew’s aching shoulder and back muscles several times. Andrew tries, and mostly fails, to pretend that he doesn’t enjoy it. He heaves a put-upon sigh. “If you want to.”

* * *

They head west again, sticking to the Gulf coast. When they reach Houston, Neil declares that he’s bored of the ocean and wants to see mountains. Andrew doesn’t like the cold, but he’s willing to wrap himself in thick sweaters and winter clothing to appease Neil, so they turn north. Andrew’s phone rings as they’re approaching Dallas; the car’s Bluetooth picks it up.

It’s Wilds. “Hey, I know you guys are somewhere in the southern portion of the country,” she says.

“No,” says Andrew, trying to head off whatever request she has for them. “We already helped Boyd with the glowing alligators. We are on vacation.”

“ _Where_ are you on vacation?” she presses. “Close to Roswell?”

“What state’s that in?” asks Neil, pulling up Google maps on his phone.

“...New Mexico,” says Wilds. “You haven’t heard of Roswell?”

“He hasn’t gotten to aliens in his pop culture catch-up yet,” says Andrew.

“The phone says that we’re about seven hours away,” says Neil.

“That’s like five and a half with Andrew driving.”

“I haven’t agreed. I don’t even know what you’re asking us to do,” protests Andrew.

“A local physicist picked up some very strange readings that raised some red flags. We’re a little stretched thin right now and I need someone to check if there’s actually something weird going on or if it’s a hoax. And since you guys are already in the area…”

“Barely. You could fly someone out faster than we can get there,” argued Andrew.

“I can make a call to the Texas and New Mexico State police services and provide them with the make and model and license plate of your car and tell them it’s an emergency vehicle.” Her tone is cajoling. “You can drive as fast as you want.”

Andrew curses his apparent predictability. She’s definitely provided a carrot that he won’t refuse. “Fine,” he says begrudgingly. “But afterwards we’re still on vacation. I don’t want to hear from you for the entire month of December.”

“Deal,” she says, and rattles off the coordinates of a small town just outside of Roswell.

They make good time to their destination. Andrew feels a small curl of smug glee every time he blows past a state trooper at twice the legal speed limit. Several of them begin to give chase, lights flashing and sirens wailing, but they give up before long. Likely as soon as they call in to dispatch and are informed that the Maserati is actually an emergency vehicle. Andrew wonders if he can somehow wrangle a blanket immunity to speeding. He should get some kind of perk from being an Avenger, after all. It’s not like it doesn’t mostly suck.

This point is demonstrated quite well once he and Neil arrive at the coordinates. They’re wandering around the tiny town, looking for the astrophysicist who reported the anomaly, when a beam of light splits the sky and somehow deposits a large robot in the middle of town.

“Is travelling by beam of light common in the future?” asks Neil.

“Don’t you think someone would have mentioned if it were?” Andrew replies, as the two of them dive out of the way of a rocket.

The robot is huge and made up of silver articulated plates that resemble Andrew’s forearms. It’s able to shoot rockets and some kind of energy beam. Neil takes off running in order to hold its attention while Andrew empties the entire clip of his SMG into its head. Unfortunately, his weapons don’t seem to have any effect on it. Andrew really wishes he’d thought to pack either a bazooka or a grenade launcher. Or both. Both would be good.

Andrew’s almost run out of ammo and he’s found that neither stabbing nor bludgeoning the robot is able to damage it when someone else enters the fight. The man takes advantage of the fact that the robot is preoccupied with Neil running circles around it to leap up and smash its head in with some kind of sledgehammer. He keeps pounding until it stops moving.

Neil returns to Andrew’s side just as the large man looks up at them and his face creases into a grin. “Well met, warriors of Midgard!” he says, standing and striding towards them. He’s tall, at least a foot and a half taller than Andrew, and buff, with shoulder length, wavy blond hair that’s been intricately braided. He’s beaming at them as if he’s actually the sun and he holds out one shovel sized hand in greeting.

“I am Erik, of Asgard, and I have travelled to this realm on an errand of utmost importance. Can you take me to the ruler of this planet?”

Andrew decides that there’s no way he’s dealing with this, so he calls in Wilds. Erik insists that while they wait for the King of Earth to arrive he will take his new battle companions to feast in triumph of their victory. There’s a diner nearby that escaped the carnage wrought by the robot; the cook and the waitress both huddled in the back room during the fight and they offer to serve them food, much to Erik’s delight.

Despite the fact that Erik was in the fight for approximately two seconds before he decisively ended it, he feels the need to go over a play-by-play. He speaks of both Neil’s speed and Andrew’s strength as matters of course and Andrew gets the feeling that he has no idea that the two of them are enhanced compared to normal humans. He’s a little on edge around Erik, not knowing his capabilities but aware that he couldn’t stand against that hammer.

He asks a couple casual questions about the weapon. Erik pats it affectionately. “Yes, Mjolnir has been with me through many battles and before that served my family for generations.”

“Mjolnir?” asks Andrew, suddenly remembering why the name Asgard had sounded vaguely familiar. “Like the famous hammer that Thor, God of Thunder, carried in Norse mythology?”

Erik brightens further, which Andrew had assumed to be impossible. “The name of my great-great grandfather is still known on Midgard?” he asks excitedly. “I have heard tales of his exploits in this realm. The people here mistook his advanced technology for magic and he was revered as a god in his younger days, before he took the throne of Asgard.”

Either this guy is severely deluded or an actual advanced space alien. Andrew’s kind of leaning towards alien. He doesn’t detect any ill-will from Erik but he still wants to get far away from this bullshit.

Neil looks like he’s having similar thoughts, so they’re both relieved when a quinjet touches down not long afterwards. Wilds disembarks, with Knox and the remainder of STRIKE one, and, for some reason, Nicky.

Erik stands immediately and bows respectfully, greeting the ‘Queen of Midgard’. Andrew kind of wishes that Reynolds was here to see this. Erik goes on to greet the ‘warriors’ of STRIKE one and gives Nicky a lascivious once-over and gallantly kisses his hand. Nicky giggles and blushes and Andrew glares at the sky.

Erik explains that he’s looking for an Asgardian object once thought lost but now believed to be located somewhere on Earth. “It’s a cube of roughly this size-” he mimes holding a cube-shaped object “-that glows blue. It contains a gem of information.”

“Right,” says Wilds slowly, because Erik is definitely describing the cube that is currently residing in Gordon’s android chest. “Well I’ve got good news and bad news…”

Erik decides to travel back to New York to see Gordon for himself, much to Nicky’s delight.

“Farewell my friends,” says Erik, giving a little bow to Andrew and Neil. “I thank you for your aid in battle.”

“Andrew,” whispers Nicky as he takes his leave, “can you believe how _hot_ the alien is?!”

“I find your form pleasing, as well,” Erik butts in from far enough away that he shouldn’t have been able to hear Nicky’s words. Nicky blushes deeply, but continues talking to Andrew. “I need some pictures from the two of you to add to your social media. Your absence after SHIELD’s collapse has been noticed.”

Andrew has been anticipating this request so he’s taken a few pictures along their route. He promises to send them to Nicky the next time he has WiFi access.

“So,” says Neil lightly once they’re back in the car and on their way to lodgings for the night. “What do you think the likelihood is of Nicky having sex with an alien?”

Andrew just gives him a quelling look, not wanting to think about his cousin having sex.

“Yeah, you’re right,” says Neil. “They’re probably having sex right now.”

* * *

“I want to go skiing,” Neil announces as they cross the border into Colorado.

“I am not going skiing,” says Andrew.

Neil smiles at him. “I know,” he says, then shakes his phone. “I just booked us a room in a chalet near Aspen. You can spend the day in the lounge by the fire with a book, gorging yourself on hot chocolate while _I_ go skiing.”

Andrew shrugs his acceptance, because that actually sounds like something he would enjoy.

Kevin is waiting for them in the lobby of the chalet when they arrive.

“Wilds promised to leave us alone,” says Andrew.

“She teamed up with Wymack and Abby to force me to take time off for Thanksgiving and go on ‘vacation’ in order to ‘relax’ and ‘stop driving everyone to distraction’,” says Kevin sullenly, complete with air quotes.

“Is it Thanksgiving?” asks Neil. “I’m terrible at remembering American holidays.”

“Not like you’re an actual bona fide American symbol or anything,” mutters Kevin.

“It was the day before yesterday,” says Andrew.

“They said I had to stay away for at least a week,” says Kevin.

“We’re booked here until December 3rd,” supplies Neil.

“Oh, I can’t stay that long,” says Kevin. “The 2nd is the first night of Hanukkah, I have to be home by then.”

Neil freezes completely. “Is… is that a thing you celebrate?”

“Not when I was growing up, but Wymack’s Jewish so we exchange gifts.”

“Oh,” says Neil, and there is a strange play of emotions across his face. “Me, too,” he says hurriedly.

“You’re Jewish?” clarifies Andrew.

Neil takes a deep breath and exhales shakily. “I’m Jewish,” he says with a nod.

Kevin gets his own room and the next day they meet for breakfast. Kevin announces his intention to join Neil on the ski hill.

“I skied a little when I lived in Switzerland,” says Neil. “Have you ever gone skiing before?”

Kevin gives him a patronizing look. “Must I remind you that I am a goddamn professional?”

“A professional archer and pain in my ass,” retorts Neil. “I’m not sure how that translates into skiing.”

Kevin waves a hand dismissively. “How hard can it be? You can do it.”

He eats his words later that morning when he trips over his own feet on the way to the training hill and falls in such a way that he ends up breaking two bones in his hand. Neil laughs so hard he falls over while Kevin sulks. Kevin spends the rest of the week with Andrew by the fire, and it’s actually fairly enjoyable. Andrew’s warm and toasty, servers come by with hot drinks and food, he gets to catch up with Kevin since they haven’t spent much time together lately, and Neil shows up at the end of each day, flushed and happy.

Kevin leaves at the end of November. On their last night at the chalet, Andrew lights a cheap candle at sundown and passes Neil a plastic dreidel that he found in the gift shop.

“Happy Hannukah, Abram,” he says.

Neil slowly rotates the dreidel in his fingers and watches the candle flame. “It’s been ninety years since I last celebrated,” he says with a complicated expression on his face. He looks up at Andrew. “Thank you. You’re amazing.”

* * *

Andrew wants to head south again because snow is the fucking worst, so Neil suggests they visit the Grand Canyon. They spend four days there, Neil dragging Andrew on far too many hikes for his liking. Andrew proposes that they start making their way back to New York since he’s promised Renee that he would be back in time for New Year’s Eve.

“Allison sent me a threat about what she’ll do to me if we make it this far west and turn back before we visit her in Malibu,” says Neil.

Andrew’s generally anti-California as his entire childhood was spent in a research facility in San Francisco; however, he’s never been to the more southern regions of the state and he’s not completely opposed to going to Reynolds’ home.

They’re a couple hours away from Reynolds’ Malibu mansion when Renee calls.

“Allison said that you and Neil were visiting her?” she asks, her voice a little tight.

“What’s wrong?” Andrew immediately replies.

“Hopefully nothing,” she says, “but I would feel better if you could get Allison out of her house for a little while. I would consider it a favour.”

“We’ll be there in about two hours,” says Andrew.

“That’s great, thanks,” says Renee in relief.

“What’s going on?” asks Neil.

“Just Allison being Allison,” she sighs. “Maybe nothing will happen, but I have a bad feeling.”

“Your bad feelings are more reliable than Old Faithful,” says Andrew.

Reynolds is pacing furiously when they arrive, mumbling something about cowards and explosions.

“Come on,” says Neil after sharing a look with Andrew. “We’re going out.”

She stops pacing. “What?”

“Out,” says Neil. “You said you wanted to show us the town.”

“I assumed I’d have to use heavy bribery to get you two hermits to go outside,” Reynolds replies.

“Look at us, on a vacation, frequently outside,” says Neil.

“Okay,” she says, clapping her hands together in excitement. “Let’s go.”

Later that night, sitting in the dark corner of a loud, overcrowded club, Andrew tries to think of something that Renee can do for him that is equivalent to the day he’s just spent in Allison Reynolds’ orbit. He can’t think of anything nearly awful enough. The only good thing is that Neil’s tucked up against his side, safe from all the people who have been looking at him with hunger in their eyes. Neil’s absentmindedly stirring his cola with a straw when his phone starts blowing up with alerts.

“Dan and Matt and Nicky and Kevin all texted to ask if we’re with Allison and if we’re okay,” says Neil, clicking through his messages.

“That’s worrying,” says Andrew, just as Reynolds returns to their table, staring white-faced at her phone.

“Someone blew up my house,” she says in a shocked voice.

“What?” asks Neil.

“According to BRIAN, helicopters showed up and shot RPGs at my mansion,” she explains.

“Why?” says Andrew.

She looks a little sheepish. “I _may_ have called a terrorist a coward and given him my home address and challenged him to face me,” she says. “Hey,” she says defensively in response to the unimpressed expressions the two of them are wearing. “I was angry.”

“No wonder Renee wanted you out of there,” says Neil.

“Renee asked you to get me out of my house?” she asks, then blanches again. “She’s going to be angry.”

“Yup,” says Andrew. “She wants you back in New York,” he continues, pocketing his phone. “We’ll take you to the airport. BRIAN already alerted the staff of your private jet that you want to be airborne soon.”

Still reeling from the personal attack, Reynolds agrees, uncharacteristically docile. She tries to convince them to come with her.

“Neil’s not allowed on any planes,” says Andrew. “He’ll just crash it into the nearest ocean.”

"Are you ever going to let that go?" asks Neil.

"Never," declares Andrew.

“You’re going to have to let me on the quinjet the next time we’re called out on a mission,” says Neil.

“We’ll see.”

They wait until the jet has taken off; Andrew texts Renee to let her know that Reynolds is on her way back to New York.

“Okay,” says Neil. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

They arrive back at Avengers Tower on the afternoon of the 31st, and Andrew can’t believe how many things have happened in the almost three months since they left to help Renee in DC. Andrew had been expecting a large New Year’s Eve party for him to avoid, but Reynolds cancelled her usual gala this year. Apparently, she’s still wary after her house was attacked, especially since the person responsible then tried to assassinate the president but was foiled by Reynolds and Renee. He and Neil had watched the news coverage.

Instead Reynolds is just holding a pajama party/movie marathon for the Avengers and their guests. Andrew figures he might as well go. He changes into sweats and grabs a couple books and takes the elevator to the common floor.

Neil’s sitting on the couch dressed in a Captain America onesie that Reynolds is probably responsible for forcing him into. He’s surrounded by Boyd and Wilds, regaling them with stories about his and Andrew’s recent travels. Kevin’s standing around the bar with Muldani, Knox, and Moreau, passionately arguing about something. Nicky and Erik of Asgard are entwined on a love-seat, engrossed in each other. Even Aaron’s here, clearly under Katelyn’s influence. He’s staring at a tablet in deep concentration, likely reviewing experimental data. Gordon’s literally hovering at the periphery of the room.

Andrew joins Renee on a sofa, accepting the bag of M&Ms she offers him.

“Alright!” says Reynolds, clapping her hands together once. “Avengers! We made it to the end of another year. And in celebration we are going to watch a marathon of Captain America movies.”

“What.” Neil isn’t even able to make it sound like a question amid the laughter that rings through the room.

“Ooh, can we start with the one where he fights dinosaurs?” asks Nicky.

“We are going to watch them in chronological order,” decrees Reynolds. “First up is 1943’s Captain America Versus The Red Skull.”

“Steve’s in that one,” says Neil. “I met him. He was nice.” He pauses in thought. “I’m pretty sure Kayleigh slept with him.”

Kevin spits out his drink. “Neil, _ew_ , that’s my grandmother you’re talking about.”

Neil turns to look at him, a gleam in his eye that promises mischief. “Did you know that the first thing your grandmother ever said to me was that she preferred to be eaten out by women rather than men?”

Kevin chokes on air and turns an interesting shade of purple.

“Please never tell me any stories about my aunties,” says Muldani, leading Kevin to sit in front of the television.

Everyone settles in as the movie begins to play. It takes about seven seconds before Neil snorts and starts brutally eviscerating the plot and the portrayal of the characters, much to everyone’s apparent glee.

Andrew sits back and cracks open one of his books, looking up once every so often to listen to what Neil is saying.

It strikes him, about halfway through the third movie, when Neil is ruthlessly tearing apart a patriotic speech by the hero and criticizing his fighting technique while being egged on by the others, that he’s perfectly content. Sitting here, surrounded by people he more or less likes and trusts, eating the snacks that Renee hands him, listening to Neil who he still isn’t bored of even after several months in his company, he’s more settled than he has ever been.

Neil catches his eye and smiles a question at him; Andrew shakes his head to let him know that nothing’s wrong.

He knows that this calm can’t last, that the Avengers still have myriad enemies waiting out there for them, that there are still members of the team that Andrew has to learn to trust, that he still has to fight an uphill battle every day for his mental health, but for the first time in his memory he’s actually looking forward to the future.

He’s not a machine, he’s a human, with a support system and people he cares about. Everyone who tried to control him, to break him, to use him, are all dead and he is still standing. He has outlasted everything that was done to him and he knows now that whatever challenges await him he will rise up and conquer them all.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on tumblr [@gluupor](http://gluupor.tumblr.com).


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